ckwiz

What is GAR?

2008-01-17T21:51:00.000+08:00

Ok one last post for Sze before I really close this blog as I don't really know where to put this one.

GAR is a term for an anime character archtype, similar to moe or tsundere. Character archtypes are usually very complicated to explain plainly and better to experience simply, but I'll try my best to put it in words here.

GAR is usually used in sentences like this:

"He is so GAR he made me cry."

GAR characters frequently appear in Shounen anime, or anime intended for boys. It is also consequently usually applied to male characters although there are instances when females have been called GAR.

Shounen anime is rather popular in Singapore and to quote some right off the bat we have stuff such as Bleach, Naruto and One Piece. A good example of a GAR character would be Kurosaki Ichigo from Bleach.

GAR characters typically evoke a feeling of extreme admiration in adolescent young boys towards the GAR character, to the point of tears. This is usually because the young boy has not reached that level of GAR-ness yet in his life. However it should be noted that GAR is also sometimes used by full-grown men in other contexts such as:

"I never knew that Henrietta was so GAR."

Refering to the Cyborg Henrietta in the anime/manga Gunslinger Girl. The sentence specifically refers to this scene in volume 5 of the manga:

I personally find GAR very stupid. You can read this post done by a married Singaporean anime blogger to understand why GAR appears mostly in Shounen anime and moe appears frequently in Seinen anime, or anime intended for men.

"In the same vein, it’d also explain why we avoid certain series. I’m sure Grouseaux despises most war-themed anime because as an insider, he knows how silly most of them are. Having served in the army like most Singaporean males, I too have a higher bar for war anime. One of the reasons why I strongly recommend Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu over Saikano is the ludicrous manner the armed forces were depicted in the latter. Extrapolating this train of thought, this is also the reason why I have low regard for GAR in anime. Would one admire GAR anime characters if HE IS GAR in RL? (That said, of course there are well-crafted GAR characters in anime, worthy of respect though they are are far and few.) Like frivolous anime wars is to Grouseaux, so is anime GAR to real men."

"This conversely explains why real men worship moe - it’s everything they are not and will never be."

"(Incidentally, the most GAR thing I believe a man can do in RL is to undertake childbearing in place of his wife. Not just the delivery but the whole ten months ordeal. Now that is a GAR I can never hope to attain.)"

To summarise using my own point of view, the reason why GAR in anime is freaking stupid to grown up men like me is because, I myself am easily more GAR in the first place. Unless of course you're not. I have done all kinds of horrendous stuff and I'll just quote one example out of numerous ones. Aside from fucking subordinates that deserve it until their backside tear, I once had to scold this captain with all his children in the backseat for refusing to budge from a double yellow line. Ok I admit, I really didn't have to hollar at him using the insane amount of decibels that I did use, but I was already pissed that I was conscripted in the first place. And the captain's stubborness didn't help. I didn't really give a fuck about what his kids thought about him at that point of time and come to think about it, I still don't care. Yeah I knew I could have gotten into trouble but I didn't, and I had an ace in the hole. The idiot parked on a double yellow line. And he is only a freaking captain anyway.

The arguement goes that anything GAR that a GAR character in any anime does can't possibly impress me. Moe, on the other hand, is an entirely different story, and I'll briefly argue out why moe is really for men and GAR is just for whimpy boys. To understand fully, just pick out any anime with moe characters and give it a go seriously such as CLANNAD, or Manabi Straight!

Most people don't understand why men are attracted to moe in anime and usually make an initial judgement that that kind of anime is for pedophiles. I don't really blame the them, but in actual fact this is not the case. Will any animation studio waste tens of thousands of yen just to make an anime for pedophiles? The logic defies common sense.

I've always been captivated by Fuko's incessant determination.

If we look seriously at most moe characters in Seinen anime such as Nagisa or Fuko from CLANNAD, you'll see that unlike stupid GAR characters, moe characters can achieve things that we men can never possibly achieve. Nagisa has great potential to fixing up Tomoya's family and Fuko did manage to mend some broken ties. These kind of things require quite a bit of moral courage from stubborn men.

I mean I really can't do this kind of stuff now. The only thing I'm really good at now is scolding people, regardless of rank. I'll just adjust my decibels and tone to suit the correct rank. I can't really mend broken families and stuffs. In fact I guess I'll achieve just the opposite.

I mean look at what Fuko did for her sister's wedding. Do you think anyone of us will really throw our face away to do something like that for our older sisters? I really don't think so.

But that's really just the brief explaination and I'm not skilled enough to put moe fully in words. Just watch more moe anime and read these posts from top to bottom if you want to understand the truth:

Ken Akamatsu's (mangaka of Love Hina and Negima!?) intepretation of moe
Moetry for you
The Moe image

To end off, MOE is the true GAR. Those who have not fully matured will not understand or appreciate this. However, mature men with clouded perceptions are not likely to understand this either.

This blog is dead

2008-01-16T21:44:00.000+08:00

Not yet, but soon enough it will be.

I decided to move on the Wordpress, as I do know it gives an overall better blogging experience overall for both the reader and the blogger. Blogger has a lot of new templates, but there really is no point in changing template since I have resized most of screencaps to fit this one. Thus I feel that I need a breath of fresh air.

Blogger's comment system is also really clunky, explaining the presence of tag/chat boxes on most blogger blogs. My wordpress one will do without one. If you feel a need to comment or discuss a post just use the comments function. Recent comments will be broadcasted on the sidebar.

Also, my wordpress blog will be purely an anime blog. I have already touched upon briefly why it is risky/irrevelant to use a blog as an online journal in this post although many bloggers, especially from our generation, are doing so. Of course you can say "its my blog, I can do anything I want with it". But think about it. A blog is available on the internet where everyone can see what you want to say. When we were younger, blogging about your life was ok. But now with heavier responsibilities to shoulder and greater awareness of how the world really is like, you'll see that posting your real-life experiences online is rather dangerous and pointless. There are just some things that some people should know and some others shouldn't. This is probably the reason why Jian Xiang has lost his impetus to blog ^^ I fully understand. And as his dead blog has demonstrated, life still goes on.

And heck, my sad army life is ending soon so, it really ends a real reason for this blog. 20 MOAR DAYS LOL.

Thus, it is better to have a thematic blog and track visitor traffic may it be about anime, food, gaming. Or anything under the sun at all really, just has to be something that you "specialise" in. That's really what the point of blogging is and I hope more of the younger generation have realised this. Blogging is a really fun thing to do, and I feel everyone should keep a blog about something. But definitely not to reveal personal information.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't blog about your life at all as the urge may be overwhelming at times when a life changing event occurs (OOOORRRDDDDDD LOOOOOHHHHHH), but those posts should not be a primary focus.

I'm also gearing my blog towards a more hardcore audience (I plan get it listed on animenano.com eventually) and thus I'll be explaining less Jap visual culture jargon and just use it plainly. If you need to clarify any terms, Wikipedia is your best friend. Or heck, you could just simply comment, email me or catch me on MSN/RL ^^

It has been a really fun journey blogging about anime and related v-culture through my army days. Sze Wai was always there to rant about Kyoto Animation anime and Russell with his lame attempts to be, well, lame! Heheheh.

Well, the journey isn't over, it probably has only just begun. I'll always need some virtual space to be a fan, and due to our dimensional nature, it is best for an anime fan to keep a blog to pursue his hobby. Anime is, and will always be, a niche hobby. It isn't some trend or pop culture phenomenon that most "normal" people believe it is. It is a unique and powerful form of modern visual culture that majority of the 3-dimensional world will never get to experience or appreciate.

But don't worry, this blog will always be stuck in some corner of the internet for anyone, including me, who requires a strong dose of nostalgia to give their aged nerves a shock ^^

Well without further ado, I guess I'll reveal the name of my new blog which is titled 2D > 3D. I hope anyone interested in my blogging will be as delighted to read my posts as I would be churning them out. :)

CLANNAD episode 13 zipped past before I could blink

2008-01-13T23:52:00.000+08:00

A similar sensation occured to me for both Kanon and Suzumiya Haruhi as well. The episodes just pass too DAMN quickly.

Anyway CLANNAD is turning out to be more science-fictiony than I had predicted. It already made a reference to some other science-fiction short story, and the quote was repeated in the ep 14 preview. Looks like KyoAni likes to alternate the creation of their anime between brainy and non-brairy series'. Heck, Suzumiya Haruhi had all kinds of funny equations and physical theories mixed into it, thus Kanon 2006 had to lighten the brain load on the KyoAni fanboys.

Episode 13 makes a lot of references to String Theory. To roughly visualise how its like, just imagine doing Particle Mechanics in Physics, but instead of using a dimensionless particle to solve questions, you use a dimensionless string that can bend anyhow. Fuck NO am I attempting that kind of questions XD

The "countless harps" that Kotomi's father talks about here refers to the "strings that make up the universe". Basically, in order to combine all physical theories (electromagnetism, mechanics, wave theory etc.) into one universal theory, instead of using particles we need to consider the usage of dimensionless strings in the problems. And these "invisible strings" that play the harmony of our universe gave inspiration to Kotomi's father to name her daughter Kotomi, since "Koto" means "harp" in Japanese.

Which is why String Theory is also known as The Theory of Everything. I wish episode 14 was airing now ><

P.S.: My father sponsored me a wireless lan card so problem solved. And a lot of bloggers who have played the original H20 ~footprints in the sand~ and CLANNAD visual novels have said that both of them are very similar in their science references. Can't wait to see more episodes for both series' ^^

Temporary Hiatus?

2008-01-12T12:24:00.001+08:00

Just moved into my temporary home at Jurong East, a place called Ivory Heights. I think its HUDC but I'm not that sure. Alot more spacious my previous abode Montery Park, but definitely much more rustic.

HOWEVER... my room doesn't have a cable connection and my com doesn't have a wireless lan card. Plus I don't wanna deprive my father from watching SCV so... until I find a way to split the ethernet wires its really difficult for me to blog properly. With screencaps and the like.

P.S. Go watch True Tears if you want raw animation quality, its eye-ball popping stuff.

Footprints

2008-01-11T02:17:00.000+08:00

I believe most people should have heard of the prose poem footprints. There are a few variations to the poem and one of them goes like this:

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”

The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

Written by Mary Stevenson, 1936

The anime adaption of the Bishoujo game H20 ~footprints in the sand~ starts off on the first episode with a partial recitation of this poem. Incidently, that's where the game got its name from.

If you thought that from this opening that it would be a rather complicated anime, you are right. For one, the protogonist is blind, and the first episode doesn't even hold back on the violence. It gets right into the thick of it.

And btw, H20 has a double meaning... watch the episode 2 preview at the end of episode 1 to find out ^^

Manabi Straight episode 6.5

2008-01-09T01:28:00.000+08:00

Loli-pong!

So the first DVD extra from the Manabi Straight! DVDs FINALLY got released and it takes place between the original TV series episodes 6 and 7.

I LOVE tsunderes. Keke.

In summary, it is just an animation of how the Seiou Student council spent their summer bonding for the big climax in the original 12 (or 13?) episode TV series, which is fighting for the school festival. It also reveals some behind the scenes explainations for a change in decision from the other merging school. Quite a critical episode if you ask me, so those Japanese who didn't buy the DVDs are missing out on a lot.

Ok I guess I've not given Manabi Straight! the introduction it deserves. To most Singaporeans it probably looks like some cute, loliconistic anime. Ok, so I do like moe lolis which got me addicted to Manabi Straight! easily... BUTTT this show really has some considerable history behind it and is marketed quite interestingly in Japan. Certainly something that is more than meets the eye.

Firstly, we have to note the opening and ending songs of the anime. They are written by a famous singer/song writer in Japan named Ritsuko Okazaki, but re-sang by Hayashibara Megumi (played the protogonist for Paprika) for the anime. You can view the opening song titled A Happy Life below:

Ritsuko Okazaki passed away at a tender age of 44 but has written over about 300 songs in her life.

"On May 5, 2004, Ritsuko Okazaki died suddenly at the age of 44 from septic shock as a result of septicemia. She was unable to speak any last words, and left her work unfinished."

Source: Wikipedia

Below I've embedded the original version of A Happy Life sang by her for comparison:

I personally prefer the Ritsuko version although I wasn't used to it the first time I heard it.

Manabi Straight! was shown on TV in Japan on a late night slot (1am). The intended audience would have instantly recognised that the opening song was a Ritsuko Okazaki song given her popularity. The lyrics of the song matched the overall theme and purpose of Manabi Straight! very well, which is essentially to live your life to the fullest the same way Ritsuko-san did in her song writing career.

The full name of Manabi Straight! is Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! Gakuen is Japanese for school, and Utopia means paradise. In essense, the anime illustrates how there is nothing in this world that can replace the paradise which is school life. And it is during this time of our youth that we should live our lives to the fullest. This is the recurring theme that plays on again and again throughout the entire series.

As American animeblogger Jeff Lawson puts it, "It’s a reminder that every single thing you do in life, intelligent or idiotic, with or without success, worthwhile or not, still matters in some way. Be it organizing a school festival, creating a work of art, or making a connection with another person, it all matters. But it rarely seems obvious at the time." This is essentially a summary of the lyrics of the song A Happy Life. These are the translated lyrics to follow as you listen to the song (TV Size):

Hora, furimuitemo mou inai yo ("See? Even if you look back now, it's too late")
Chansu nante ne sonna mono dato aorarete mo (That's how chances are. Even if someone tells you this,)
Ugokenai toki datte aru no (there are times in the past when you simply can't make a move.)

Sou kore mo subete kimi no tame ni iu koto dayo (Well, I say all this for your sake.)
Demo gomen ne (Yet, I'm sorry)
Nattoku shinai koto kantan ni wa unazukenai (I won't consent easily to things I don't accept.)

Uso de sonoba wo umaku yarisugoshite mo (Even if I can get by the moment with a lie)
Kitto kuyamu kara (I'll end up regretting later)
Kako mo mirai mo mochiron ima mo (Whethere its the past, the future or, of course the present)
Subete seou no wa jibun damono (I have to shoulder it.)

Simultaneous Background: *Nayamou!* (In that case, let's worry!)

Ato de wakaru yo subete no imi ga (You will understand the meaning of it all later,)
Ima wa wakaranakute mo (even if you don't understand now.)
Kurushimi mo shiawase mo himitsu mo (The pain, the happiness and the secrets)
Dakara nagenai de dakashimete ikou zutto (don't give up yet. Let's embrace each other forever,)
Its my life! Dakara! (Because, its my life!)

That being said, I urge anyone who has not considered this anime seriously to go grab it now and give it a try as it is overall rather meaningful. The voice cast for this one is also stellar. Manabi herself is voiced by Horie Yui of Love Hina fame. Mika, the narrator of the series, is voiced by Nonaka Ai (Fuko from CLANNAD). Mei is voiced by none other than Hirano Aya who rose to incredible heights of popularity playing Suzumiya Haruhi.

The manga is still being serialised.. so I'm crossing my fingers for a season 2. UFOtable kicks ass :)

Excuses + Google Analytics

2008-01-06T21:32:00.001+08:00

Lol ok I have not been blogging for a freaking long time now by my blogging standards. In actual fact if I've not been hindered by real-life, I'll actually be blogging everyday. Why? Because first and foremost, the winter 2007/2008 season of anime is here and I'm bursting to blog about what I'm going to watch. And sadly, the season has started before I had a chance of doing anything. I've yet to watch any of the first episodes released but I'm in the process of downloading them.

Anyway, these are my excuses:

1. I'm moving house to the Lakeside area soon. Spent 7 hours in Ikea during one weekend. Spent alot more time doing other crap. Like shifting heavy boxes.

2. Started the year on a bad note. Firstly is the 7 hours at Ikea thing, seriously drove me nuts. I got Ikea-phobia now, no way am I going back there anytime soon. Then kanasai at camp on the very first day of the new year. Really tio damn alot of shit.

3. Hellgate London. In the first place, it isn't even that good a game. Gamespot gave it a 7/10, but they got one thing right which is that it sucks you in. I also just upgraded to 4 GB worth of Kingston 667mhz ram and that doesn't help either. Even though I think HGL is a freaking waste of time, I'm still gonna play it and kick demon butt. DAMN YOU JIAN XIANG LOL.

4. Was reformatting my com. Didn't take long but still took some time, considering my hard drive is 300 GB.

Well DESPITE my lack of blogging, I'm still presently surprised that my blog still gets a constant average of 50 visits per day. So to any of you readers who get pissed by my lack of updates and keep clicking everyday, thanks for visiting! But uh its the New Year. And I really got damn alot of shit to do.

Yupz, I've installed Google Analytics on my blog since 3 months ago. Its a free service provided by Google which allows you to keep track of visitor traffic to your site.

And today my blog has finally became l33t because it hit 1337 visitors! Just kidding.

My visitors from the US has also finally overtaken my Singaporean visitors. I didn't think it was possible, but it just happened today.

Here are the full screenshots of which I snipped bits off from (click to enlarge):

Anyway to those interested in what anime I'm watching these are the titles that I've selected after reading a ton of previews:

1. H20 ~footprints in the sand~ (bishoujo game adaption, protogonist is blind, imo must watch)

2. True Tears (yet another bishoujo game adaption)

3. Okami to Koshinryo (everyone is raving about this... some wolf girl light novel adaption)

4. Shifogumi (another light novel adaption, deals with death)

5. Gunslinger Girl ~Il Treaino~ (Seinen action/drama, 2nd season)

6. Rosario to Vampire (Shounen ecchi)

7. Aria the Origination (slice-of-life, third season)

8. S.A. (Shoujo series licensed by CY locally so giving it a shot)

Expect posts coming up for these anime if they happen to be good stuff.

Minami- WHAT THE F*CK 2

2007-12-28T20:51:00.000+08:00

OH NOES!!!

And when I had just scrapped out the last piece of my brain from under the cupboard and inserted it back into my skull, episode 11 had to blow it up again.

WHAAAMMMM!!!

Hot damn, I hope someone licenses Minami-ke.

Osaka invades Singaporean TVs!!!

2007-12-27T22:00:00.000+08:00

That's right folks! Azumanga Daioh debuts 2nite on Arts Central at 11pm!!!

For the uninitiated, I've compiled a list of vital statistics for the series -

Intended Demographic: Seinen
Genre: Comedy, High School, Slice-of-life, 4Koma
Mangaka: Azuma Kiyohiko
Serialised in: Dengeki Daioh (sola, Ichigo Mashimaro, Yotsuba&!, Manabi Straight!, Gunslinger Girl)
Manga original run: February 1999 – June 2002
Manga ran: 4 volumes
Manga licensed by: ADV Manga, Tong Li comics
Animation Studio: J.C. Staff (Ghost Hunt, Shakugan no Shana, Potemayo)
Anime Original Run: April 8, 2002 – September 30, 2002
Anime ran: 26 episodes
Anime licensed by: ADV films and ODEX????

In a nutshell, expect alot of whacked out and dead-pan humour, especially from the idiot Osaka featured in the screeshot above (sea cucumbers!!!). Its a slice-of-life show so you don't need to strictly follow it episode by episode.

To sample some of the 4Koma strips in the manga, check out this post.

Key through the years

2007-12-25T19:40:00.000+08:00

Following my Kyoto Animation through the years blogpost that I did when Kyoto Animation's adaption of their first game Kanon ended, I'm going to do one on a significant visual novel company named Key. And anyway, since there ain't anymore CLANNAD to watch for awhile, I thought I'd fanboy about Key for awhile since I'm a Key fanboy afterall ^^

Kyoto Animation and Key have enjoyed a successful business venture through the years where KyoAni adapted 2 of Key's games into anime which are AIR and then Kanon that became very successful in their respective industries. KyoAni is currently working on Key's 3rd game which is CLANNAD and is into its 12th episode.

Key released some games before 1999, but since their first hugely successful one was Kanon, I thought I'd start this blogpost from 1999.

Key game openings have always been beautiful, so I've included them in this post to compare to their anime incarnations. I have actually bought the singles disc for CLANNAD's OP.

Released in 1999 : Kanon

Adapted into anime by Toei Animation in 2002 (13 episodes)
Re-adapted into anime by Kyoto Animation in 2006 (24 episodes)

Game OP:

2006 Anime OP:

Song: Last Regrets by Ayana

Kanon is a generic 1999 bishoujo game created for the PC and is Key's first game. Even though the graphics of the game look like shit now in 2007, it was considered one of the best visual novels for its time and was considered the best bishoujo game of 1999. Even now in 2007 it still remains one of the top 100 best-selling bishoujo games of all time (ranked 74 as of today).

Tsukimiya Ayu in the game.

Despite Kanon's greatness in 1999, if you compare Kanon to Key's other games now you'll see that the characters are not that well developed. The main character Yuiichi has been critisised of being shallower than Key's other protogonists and the heroines in the game "dissapear without a trace".

Tsukimiya Ayu in the 2006 anime adaption.

Despite this, it was still a great game for its time and the 2006 anime adaption of Kanon really brought out its essential beauty and stayed true to its main theme of "sad girls in the snow". The 2002 anime adaption sucked dick, so please don't kill your brain cells by watching it.

Released in 2000: AIR

Adapted into anime by Kyoto Animation in 2005 (13 episodes)

Game OP:

2005 Anime OP:

Song: Tori no Uta by Lia

AIR is Key's summer themed bishoujo game as compared to the winter theme found in Kanon. The characters in AIR are significantly more developed than Kanon, and the protogonist is much older and thus more complex.

Misuzu in the game. Note the greatly improved character design.

AIR is noted to be Key's most sadistic game yet with a lot of its characters dieing before the game ends. If you thought Kanon was heart-wrenching due to girls disappearing for apparently no good reason, wait till you watch/play AIR.

Misuzu in the anime.

Similar to Kanon, AIR received excellent sales on release and is also one of the top 100 bishoujo games sold of all time (ranked 67 as of today).

Released in 2004: CLANNAD

Adapted into anime by Kyoto Animation in 2007 (currently airing and set to span 52 episodes)

Game OP:

2007 Anime OP:

Song: Mag Mell by eufonius

Here's a video on how bishoujo games/visual novels play out like (this is actually one of the true endings for CLANNAD so don't watch it finish assuming you understand Japanese XD):

CLANNAD is Key's 3rd game and thus features their most complexly crafted characters yet. CLANNAD's main protogonist Okazaki Tomoya has notably taken some hard knocks and is a delinquent at the local school compared to Kanon's shallow Yuiichi.

CLANNAD is also Key's longest game yet, featuring a total average of 110 game play hours. The storylines of each of its heroines are fully developed and intertwine with one another. This is different from AIR and Kanon of which each heroine's storyline doesn't affect another one's largely.

CLANNAD is currently undergoing a translation project which is 86% completed as of today, so I'm planning to buy it soon in the future.

Released in 2004/2006: Planetarian

No anime adaption yet (one should be announced soon)

Game Trailer:

Planetarian is a post-apocalyptic Kinetic Novel, which is a subset of Visual Novels that are basically visual novels without a single game choice at all and play through very quickly. Even though it is Key's shortest game ever, it is arguably Key's greatest game of all time. Planetarian fans have commented that when you've finished the game you will be "crying manly tears, emo tears, sissy tears and every other kind of tears you can imagine". Basically something you cannot don't experience.

I have installed the full version of Planetarian on my computer for the longest time now but I've not touched it due to laziness. Playing visual novels are quite tiring since they are like reading a novel so I've put it off for some time now watching anime instead. I have completed the demo though, which covers the first 5 chapters and what I can comment on is that it looks like a solid game.

But.. I'll probably go and play it now since CLANNAD ain't airing anytime soon...

Released in 2007: Little Busters!

No anime adaption yet.

Game OP:

I do not know much about Little Busters!, but from online images of it its characters are very, very, very very very moe. Key's most moe characters yet. And since I like moe, alls fine in the world XD

Although the characters in Little Busters! look alive, they are very much dead. They were all involved in some kind of accident, and their leader created an imaginary world for them to live in until they became stronger to move on to another world.

Consequently, Little Busters! is Key's most interactive visual novel yet. That's really all I know about Little Busters! thus far but I do hope that some studio adapts it into an anime since I don't see this one being translated anytime soon.

The Dandelion Girl

2007-12-23T21:38:00.000+08:00

Nothing in this world gives me more satisfaction than watching a brand new episode fresh from Kyoto Animation's studios. From Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu to Suzumiya Haruhi and Lucky Star, I relished every single episode. CLANNAD is no exception, and episode 12 just brought Kotomi's arc to its tension point. I genuinely winced with great remorse that the next 2 weeks will be CLANNAD-less as I finished episode 12.

There is just something magical about this animation studio that I can't put in words. Its likely to be a combination of the stellar animation quality and the skill of the director together with a very powerful soundtrack. Those who have been following KyoAni's work will agree especially the excellent comedy found in Fumoffu. Where there is much fodder to keep me distracted this season like Minami-ke and Myself; Yourself, there is simply no replacement for CLANNAD.

In episode 12, Kotomi uttered the lines "The day before yesterday I saw a rabbit, yesterday a deer and today, you." as illustrated with the screenshots in this blogpost. This line was taken from an American sci-fi short story titled The Dandelion Girl by Robert F. Young. In a sense, this short story embodies what CLANNAD and Key storylines are like: tragedy, unrecognised love and a despondent man who discovers something about life that he’s forgotten.

The Dandelion Girl can be read here. A highly recommended read and gives you an idea of how Key script writers think like, and evidence that they have exposed themselves to a variety of foreign literature. Heck, CLANNAD is Irish.

Key is a highly successful visual novel company in Japan that debuted with the title Kanon, also adapted into an anime by Kyoto Animation. Their next games were released in the following order: AIR, CLANNAD, Tomoyo After, Planetarian and the latest and very popular Little Busters!

TEH HORROR

2007-12-21T18:04:00.000+08:00

"On a related note, CLANNAD will not be airing on December 27th or January 3rd. Episode 13 will thus be airing on January 10th, 2008."

Source: Random Curiosity

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooo....!!!

CLANNAD withdrawal setting in. Symptoms include:

1. Re-watching episodes 1-9 in wide screen format.
2. Listening and re-listening to CLANNAD OST.
3. Viewing and reviewing CLANNAD discussion threads.
4. Cycling to West Coast Park to poke starfish.

Actually, Gunslinger Girl season 2 is airing on the 7th of January of 2008, so I'll be suffering until then XD

What every Lucky Star fan wanted to say but could never

2007-12-19T13:07:00.000+08:00

American animeblogger Jeff Lawson is doing an end of the year review of this year's anime and has done an excellent post on Kyoto Animation's Lucky Star:

"The fact that I understood even half the jokes in Lucky Star is proof positive that I’m a lost cause.

I recall when Lucky Star first began, there was a lot of discussion about the very first scene in the very first episode, in which Konata and friends sat around discussing the proper way to eat various foods for five minutes. Or was it ten minutes? I can’t remember, really. It was a long time, either way, and with that one scene which one half of viewers hated, the other half loved, and pretty much no one (myself included) fully understood, Lucky Star became the topic du jour of the Spring anime season.

Talk about a plan coming together.

And, in many ways, that scene set the stage for what Lucky Star would become: a continuing series of all the absurd and pointless conversations we have with our friends when there’s nothing better to do. Lucky Star isn’t just slice-of-life; it’s distilled slice-of-life. Slice-of-life in the raw. Slice-of-life au naturel.

Here’s the rub, though. All those absurd and pointless conversations we have with our friends when there’s nothing better to do? Sometimes, they’re not all that funny. In fact, sometimes, they don’t even make sense. And Lucky Star was no different in that regard. Sometimes, it wasn’t funny. Sometimes, it didn’t make sense. On more than one occasion, a whole episode would pass without my laughing all that much. For a show that relied so much on jokes and gags to get its point across, you’d think this would be an indication of complete and utter failure on the part of the writers and director.

Perhaps it was. Yet, I kept watching. In fact, when I found myself facing a pile of new anime episodes in need of watching, Lucky Star always seemed to come first. And when an episode left me disappointed, I’d just shrug my shoulders and say, “c’est la vie,” because I knew the next one likely would not. And, typically, that’s exactly how things played out.

So, despite being an uneven show, Lucky Star somehow managed to keep me hooked. Was it some sort of Kyoto Animation voodoo magic? Was I just really, really bored? Did I have a crush on Kagami?

Anyone know how to say, “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” in French?"

His blogpost more or less sums up what I, and any other person who fell madly in love with Lucky Star, feel about KyoAni's only 4-panel manga adaption, but was never able to express either in words or speech.

Jeff Lawson is currently my favourite animeblogger who does insightful posts instead of stiring up blogosphere dorama (Jap: drama), which is the trap quite a lot of bloggers fall into (me included).

Seeing that he did such an excellent review about Lucky Star, his Manabi Straight! post really let my down though. Really illustrates on how you should only blog when you're "in the zone" as his Manabi Straight! post felt a bit forced.

Hatsune Miku's vocal manipulation and range

2007-12-16T23:04:00.000+08:00

For those not yet convinced that VOCALOID 2 is THE music software that can potentially take over human singers, lets look at some songs that employ the vocal "talent" that the series' first character Hatsune Miku is capable of.

First up is a song that illustrates her vocal manipulation from the start to the finish. "Sha-da-da-da-la" is used in the background and also in the main part of the song.

Miracle Paint:

A very fun jazz piece that I don't get tired listening to over and over again. Those who want it in their mp3 players can download it here.

Next up is a song that employs the highest part of her vocal range. It may seem irritating at first, but in the end I found it kind of beautiful.

At first I dismissed this song as a typical Japanese copy American pop kinda thing, but in the end it still kicked ass.

You must listen till the chorus to catch the high part.

Kona Yuki:

Download here.

With Kagamine Rin's release this month, we can look forward to more excelent, digitally crafted music.

Yamaha's Hatsune Miku VOCALOID 2 software took to top spot on Amazon Japan as the top selling software during its month of release.

"Because they’re synthesized voices, you can tell it’s fake depending on effort of the producer, but for the most part Miku sings amazing (if you like Japanese pop). She’s so popular that apparently all the first prints of the Vocaloid2 Hatsune Miku package have sold out, and it has also made amazon’s #1 bestsellers software rank despite the 15,750 yen (140 SGD) price (which I’m still wondering if I should buy…)"

Source: Moe Idolatory

CLANNAD: A Christian-friendly anime?

2007-12-11T17:10:00.000+08:00

Apparently a friend of this conservative has managed to convince him to watch CLANNAD on the grounds that this anime spreads family values and thus may be relevant to Christianity.

I don't want to spoil the party for conservatives but I'll say it clear and say it LOUD..

NO. ANIME AND JAPANESE VISUAL CULTURE IN GENERAL IS NOT FOR CONSERVATIVES WHO WANT TO BE STUCK WITH THEIR OLD VALUES AND GET ERADICATED BY THE ZERG (Protoss Conclave anyone?).

So errr... if any conservative bloggers are reading this I suggest you keep anime out of your blogs as anime isn't very conservative. CLANNAD has some very suggestive sexuality themes, which most normal people find funny. But the average narrow-minded conservative will find it offensive.

This is why J-entertainment kicks ass. Japanese entertainment takes the deepness of a culture like the Chinese culture and throws out the communist values, and also isn't limited by American conservative movements putting a cap on the level of violence or extremism in movies and TV series you see in Singapore.

Oh and yes, I'm very much liberalist. Liberalism for the fucking win. If you need convincing just look at this post, or just surf around my blog in general. In fact I would go so far as to say I'm a radical liberalist.

I've recently picked up the Da Vinci Code. Yes, no matter how good anime, manga or light novels are, the conventional novel is still an irreplaceable form of entertainment. But I'll discuss that in another blog post.

The Da Vinci Code is a very liberalist novel that challenges convention and tradition. Towards the end of the novel it argues that the reason for religion is because men cannot think for themslves in the past. However, in this new age of expanded knowledge and pseudo-religion, we men can in fact judge for ourselves what is right and wrong. Thus the role of religion diminishes. Those who have not read DVC may want to check it out as it is worth your time.

So to any conservatives out there, I recommend y'all to be more open minded and experience some Japanese visual culture. Otherwise, keep J-visual culture outta your blogs. Its for your own good.

Also, another conservative has made a post on how anime encourages violence which drew close to a thousand comments. Precisely because Seinen anime is geared towards an 18+ mature (non-conservative) male audience. Do NOT show Seinen anime to your younger cousins damnit!!!

Can you imagine if this guy saw other Seinen stuff like Gunslinger Girl? OMGWTFBBQ YOUNG GIRLS KILLING PEOPLE WITH GUNS!!! THIS IS FILTHY JAPANESE TRASH!! JAPAN WORSHIPS SATAN!!!! ALL YOUR FILTHY YEN CAN BURN FOR ALL I CARE!!!

So the most important question is: Have you succumbed to conservatism or are you embracing liberal thought?

Suzumiya Haruhi manga gets a local license!

2007-12-07T23:08:00.000+08:00

Local manga publisher Chuang Yi has gotten their hands on the much coveted The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi manga adaption license!!!

Me, together with the rest of the local online manga fans, have been pushing for this license since early 2007. The request thread for Haruhi has hit over 10 pages and we thought that CY would dissapoint us as usual.. but looks like they did not!

Evidence (click to enlarge):

The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi started off as an obscure light novel series in Japan which was adapted into a 14-episode anime series by Kyoto Animation. The popularity of the anime was nothing short of an incredible phenomenon in Japan, sparking off many events including a live-action concert by the anime's voice actresses.

Source : Hashihime

The anime has been licensed in America on DVD and has performed exceeding well, selling 60,000 over total copies in America and counting, compared to only 80,000 copies of the first volume in Japan.

Source: Hashihime

Due to its popularity, no company has yet gotten its hands on the novel licenses and fans speculate its due to the price. The cost of licensing anime can cost as much as US$70,000 per episode so who knows how much a novel will cost to license.

Oh and a last word of caution: I've read some of the manga via scanlations and gotta say the manga is not really that good compared to the novel or the anime, but heck Haruhi fans will and SHOULD buy it anyway. To anyone considering getting the manga, you have been warned.

Dimensionality

2007-12-03T14:15:00.000+08:00

This post is potentially offensive to the religious, since I am aware that it is a sin to actually try and visualise god. It is also one of those brainier posts that I've labeled as insights, so it would be better to read it with a fresh mind.

I've made an interesting theoretical discovery that God isn't really "holy" at all, in fact he could be a sinister being. This is all speculation of course, but bear with me if you want to find out more.

Firstly, a brief lesson on dimensional mathematics:

The mathematical definition of an object with no or zero dimension is known as a point.

An object with one dimension is known as a line.

An object with two dimesions is known as a plane.

An object with three dimesions is known as a space.

As for the 4th dimension, Einstein discovered in his theory of relativity that it is actually time, but we won't be going much into the 4th dimension. An object with four or more dimensions is known as a hyperspace.

5cm/s : A bittersweet aftertaste

Remember I mentioned here that we went to watch some anime movie at Singapore's National Musuem? It was a freaking amazing show, and it didn't hit me at first but after I went home and was lying around in bed I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It astounded me how a 2 dimensional animated show could bring out a certain beauty and purity that 3 dimensional movies/tv shows couldn't.

Prior to watching the show I was talking to Brandon about how fast this show sells out. He countered by saying "with such a small gallery theatre, it isn't amazing that it sold out." I wanted to counter with how anime wasn't popular in Singapore and stuffs, but he went on to elab by saying "the recent Spice Girls concert sold out in 38 seconds."

It was then that I shut up. I was kind of uncertain whether the show would be that good at that point of time, but after the show, I was positive that this stuff was a few hundred times better than any spice girls concert.

Why then, wasn't it as popular? Have you realised that it is difficult in general to talk about anime in real-life to others? Isn't it much easier to talk cock, or about the news, the weather, or the latest celebrity scandal? There are other manga/anime enthusiasts in camp and when I talk to them its more about work or life in general, to a lesser extent about anime/manga. Heck directly after the show I said something like "wanna go SITEX?" instead of really discussing about it, even though it is good stuff.

The empirical explanation: Dimensionality

Ok we are all 3 dimensional beings. As everyone should know, the first two dimensions are of course length and breadth. The 3rd dimension is height.

Ever felt inferior to someone that is taller than you? Since girls are more societal creatures compared to men, they are more dimensionally-entrenched, and thus feel the crunch harder. This is why high-heel shoes exist.

Since all of us are more or less affected by dimensionality, this explains why people think cartoons and anime in general are dumb. It is a fact that cartoons are 2 dimensional and thus possess no height.

Those who are deeply dimensionally-entrenched will make statements like "HAHA HAHA CARTOON AGAIN" (read comment 4). You can reduce your level of dimensional-entrenchment by of course experiencing more 2 dimensional entertainment. You increase your level of entrenchment if you shun such entertainment and only experience entertainment of 3 dimensions or higher.

This is true even for me, since I'm a 3 dimensional being. I find it difficult to engage in deep conversations about anime, especially if the conversationalist is dimensionally-entrenched (most people are). Many animebloggers have confessed this feeling in general, and have thus engaged in the thriving blogosphere to express their passion.

Dimensional feats

I mentioned that 2-dimensional beings cannot possess the property height. To them, modifying your position in height is an amazing, other-worldly feat.

To better illustrate this, remember at the start I mentioned that the 4th dimension is time? To us 3-dimensional beings moving through time is super fucking amazing. Thus, travelling through time is as amazing to us as jumping is amazing to a 2-dimensional being, which we can do very easily.

To reinforce this idea, a 4 dimensional being is probably a 3-dimensional being that can move through time, like Mikuru.

Higher or Lower: Purity and Corruption

String Theory predicts that the universe is made up of 11 dimensions. Due to this theoretical discovery, I've always based my pseudo-religious belief on how God is 11 dimensional, since an 11 dimensional being can perform miracles that us normal humans could not possibly fathom.

If God is indeed 11 dimensional, this may not bode as well, because the general argument is that the more complex a world is and the more corrupted it can be. The lower the dimension, the lesser factors its dimensional beings would have to worry about and thus being more pure.

Look at the problems we 3 dimensional beings have to face with now: Global Warming, Wars, Day-to-day work-life politics. I speculate that at lower dimensions physical properties like temperature wouldn't exist. In a nutshell, it would be a simpler and purer place.

Thus, imagine if God is an 11 dimensional being. He could be this mad scientist that has created all the lower dimensional worlds and is experimenting with them. If it is difficult to visualise an 11 dimensional world, you can try with a 4 dimensional world where everyone could time travel. That would bring about alot of problems already.

This is of course just all theory, but who knows? This world really isn't what it seems, and if the scientists in the Arizona desert find a physical piece of evidence to prove it, it wouldn't be merely a theory anymore.

Conclusion

To round it up, the reason why people say stuff like "its only a cartoon" is because they are dimensionally-entrenched. This is the reason why even though anime (2-dimensional entertainment) can be better or on par with 3-dimensional entertainment (Spice Girls) it is overall more comfortable to consume and discuss 3D entertainment, not because it is lousy or childish. It is simply because we are 3 dimensional beings ourselves.

You can watch discovery channel's String Theory documentary here:

MINAMI... WHAT THE F*CK

2007-11-29T22:32:00.000+08:00

OH MY GOD if you have not watched Minami-ke you had better start now!!111 I just watched episode 6 and it omgwtfbbqed BLEW MY FREAKING BRAIN OUTTA MY EARS!!!

BOOOM!!!!

Makoto...

The common opinion of most anime bloggers is that Minami-ke is the best series this season even overtaking the pre-season favourite which is of course KyoAni's CLANNAD and Kodomo no Jikan suffering a huge set back due to heavy censorship. OH MY THIS IS ONE FREAKING CRAZY ANIME LOLZ!!!!

...crossdressed!!!

To be honest, it started out as an average slice-of-life series until episode 6 when this idiot guy Makoto, one of Chiaki's classmates, started cross-dressing. And he got to see Haruka-neesama's you-noe-wads exposed because Haruka thought he was a girl while he was indeed a guy... OH MY F*CK my mind juz BLEW when Haruka started doing stuff like choosing bras for him like F*CK CB!!!!

WRONG place to get caught, dumbass!!!

It would be pretty bad to put static NSFW (not-safe-for-work, or OFFENSIVE in other words) pics up on my blog, but you can pretty much imagine it.

MY BRAIN. MY POOR BRAIN...

Needless to say, if I ever get my hands on Mako-chan I will RIP HIM TO PIECES. GARRRHHHHHH!!!!

Firing the Sig Sauer P226

2007-11-26T21:42:00.000+08:00

So I was at Payar Lebar camp's 50m range for a P226 re-familiarization shoot. I know many Singaporean soldiers have fired weapons such as the AR-15, M16 and of course the SAR-21. I myself have fired the mentioned assault rifles, including FN MAG (better known to Singaporean soldiers as the GPMG), but shooting a pistol is very different and I would say harder to pass compared to the other small arms I have fired.

The AR-15 and the M16 require manual zeroing, so that is one thorn in the side when it comes to firing it at the ranges on Pulau Tekong. The SAR-21 on the other hand is automatically zeroed and I would say is very convenient to fire. Many international defense and weapons experts have praised our home grown assault rifle even though I've heard many Singaporean soldiers say there are a ton of problems with it. I don't find much problems with it and in fact, I did enjoy firing it through both the sights and using the optical laser and nearly got a perfect score on my virgin fam shoot. The sound discharge is also much lower than the AR-15 and the M16.

Basic GPMG ranges are even easier to pass since the primary focus is barrel changing without touching the machine gun barrel yourself (or you will walk around with the barrel stuck to your fingers). The sights are fixed so there isn't much target practice involved at all. The other difficult part is absorbing the impact of the MG butt on your right shoulder which can lead to sores later, especially if you are given an excess of 100 rounds to expend.

Pistols ranges, on the other hand, are quite a different experience. For one, the pistol kicks like an enraged buck, easily destroying any aim you've built up. This is especially different from the SAR-21 which absorbs any shock from a discharged round very well.

Secondly, the pistol isn't a very powerful weapon and for policing duties, we use frangible rounds, which means the round stays in you when it penetrates your flesh. This is in stark contrast to assault rifle rounds that drill a nice BIG hole through the back of your body as it exits. The drop of a pistol round is tremendous, and I find aiming slightly above the head of the target works best for 50m as the round will drop down to the chest level.

There is also a stance which requires you to "fire behind cover", which is actually this flimsy piece of wood which doesn't really absorb vibration well. I almost always score badly for this stance since my palms will kick to the top of the "cover" most of the time after firing and stay there for awhile, killing any aim I've built up.

All factors considered, the chances of going bobo and re-shooting is much higher with a pistol compared to other small arms I've fired. But I've, fortunately, passed on the first try (even though I have not fired for more than a year) and here are my scores for the individual
stances:

Standing - 8/10
Kneeling - 6/10
Kneeling behind cover - 5/10
Sitting - 8/10
Prone - 7/10
Overall - 34/50

The top score was 47. Our PC promised anyone who could get 50/50 50 bucks, but that's because its almost impossible with a pistol ^^

Update on Fate/Unlimited Codes : Air Combo Video

2007-11-25T18:52:00.000+08:00

For those who have already read my previous post today, I found the 4th video released on YouTube and apparently the game has an inbuilt air-combo system as demonstrated by Sabre in this video:

Seeing the air combo system put to work has made me REALLY excited of this game. How long does it take for a Japanese fighting game to come to Singapore arcades? I really wouldn't mind knowing ^^

Fate/ Unlimited Codes videos now on YouTube

2007-11-25T12:33:00.000+08:00

I'm sure you've heard or at least watched abit of the anime adaption of the adult visual novel Fate/Stay Night. The anime itself has been licensed, so it isn't in my interest (nor safety) to propogate it. But you can try the translated demo of the original visual novel over here. Gotta say the visual novel was legendary but the anime really put me off. However, it IS one of the better game to anime conversions so fans wouldn't complain.

If you like the demo, it might be a good idea to download the full game via bit torrent from sites like Mininova as there is a full translation patch out for Fate's route. I'll be seeding the patch infinitely so dun worry. Or alternatively you could buy it if you have the cash (prices in USD which is steep).

The visual novel has received another conversion into a professional 3D fighting game that has a good chance showing up in Singaporean arcades and from the initial videos released, looks like pretty solid stuff:

Source: Visual Novels

Official Site: Capcom Japan

There seems to be an air combo system built in, but I don't really see the characters taking advantage of it. Weird, but useful to note.

Byousoku 5 cm per second @ National Musuem

2007-11-23T22:04:00.000+08:00

"FIVE CM PER SECOND, refers to the speed at which sakura petals fall, a metaphor of how people often start together but slowly drift apart." - Gatecrash email

The National Musuem of Singapore is screening Makoto Shinkai's latest piece of animation Byousoku 5 cm per second. The first screening on 27th of Nov sold out in 2 days flat, so I'm getting people for the Dec 1st one (at 12.30pm). So far the confirmed ones are...

My Sis
Her guy friend
Chooch
Brian SeeToh
Brandon Teoh...

And me. If I can get one more guy, which should be soon, I can go ahead with the 10 people tix deal. Coz the original price of a tix without the deal is $7, and 7 X 7 = 49, so doesn't make sense (and cents) to buy 7 X 7 when you can get $5 X 10.

Local animeblogger Crest from the Research Institute for the Unicultural Visual Arts has done a full review on 5cm/s and its great stuff. But its really freaking long so if you want a condensed overview of this animated film, you can continue on with this blogpost.

High quality wallpapers which are blown-up screen caps of some of the screenshots from the fansubbed version are available from Yahoo Japan so go get them as they are beautiful.

Makoto Shinkai is an animator from Japan most famous for independent animated movies. Which means he produced them himself without an auxillery crew. His first animated monochrome 5-min short titled She and Her Cat which won several animation prizes and brought much needed fame to the young animator. She and Her Cat took him a gruelling 5 months to complete as quoted from inside my Hoshi no Koe DVD cover:

"She and Her Cat is a 5 minutes short anime which was made entirely by Mr. Makoto Shinkai. She and Her Cat is purely a handmade film. He recorded the monologue of She and Her Cat in his own living room by using small microphone, the running noise of MiniDisk recorder could still be heard in the film. And the lighting sound of the fluoresccent light is the sound of a glass being trapped by a tiepin."

My Scan (click to enlarge):

I've watched She and Her Cat about ten over times itself as it comes in 3 flavours: the 3 min version, the 5 min version, and the digest version. The 3 min version is just right... 5 min one felt draggy. Digest one was abit short lol.

I'm gonna skip his next few works and focus on his latest masterpiece titled Byousoku 5 cm per second. It consists of three short films titled Oukashou, Cosmonaut, and 5 Centimeters per Second and the total screen time is around 1 hour. I've only watched the first part Oukashou via fansubs way before this screening and my initial impression is that the visuals are god-like, but the voices ain't too hot.

I always say that the primary reason to watch anime is for the voices, because Japan has the world's most talented Seiyuus (voice actresses) for animation and good Seiyuus can reach celebrity status in Japan. You can say that Seiyuus in anime are like the actors in a movie. If you're watching anime for plot only, its not a good deal as you can easily get better artwork from the manga or game it was adapted from. Plus anime has the tendency to cut out stuff from the original works.

So when I heard the flat voices for 5cm/s, I was initially quite turned off. But the visuals definitely wowed me and got me to continue. But since my ear works the most when I'm watching anime the experience was seriously marred. However, I kept telling myself Makoto Shinkai is an independent animator and doesn't have the budget or time to hire big name Seiyuus for his film. At that time, the big thing for me was Kyoto Animation's Lucky Star with their delicious Seiyuu cast, so I quickly dropped it.

While I don't really rate 5cm/s as top in my books, I guess it should be ok for those not too hardcore about what kind of anime they watch. What really struck me was even though 5cm/s is an independent movie, its animation quality matched, or even surpassed, the works of big name anime companies like Kyoto Animation.

But heck I guess the overall point is just to meet up, and at $5 per ticket there's really nothing to lose. You can't get cinema quality on DVD so I'm definitely not passing up this opportunity. Oh and 5cm/s has been licensed by ADV films and I already plan to get it as well.

I'm probably gonna recce the musuem this Sunday dismount to checkout whether there's a cafe there as suggested by Brandon. I'm shooting for an early lunch at 11.30pm and other options include Kopitiam, Long John Silvers and Carl's Junior and its open to discussion...

VOCALOIDs have invaded my Zen Vision W

2007-11-21T22:35:00.000+08:00

Full size image (click to enlarge):

I put all of my VOCALOID images inside too, mostly stolen from the Animesuki forums courtesy of this guy called Maids!Maids!Maids! (click to enlarge):

Yea I know its damn dusty, but heck my fellow MPs have been taking it without my permission. I don't really mind as long as they charge it. And yes, my player mostly has anime in it, but I also included Band of Brothers and will probably put in some WWII movies soon.

Anyway, the next character in the Yamaha's VOCALOID series of software is slated for a late December release and her name is Kagamine Rin (鏡音リン). She's supposed to be Miku's younger sister and these are her vital stats:

Age: 14
Height: 152cm
Weight: 43kg
Favorable Genre: Rock and Dance pops / Kayoukyoku - Enka pops
Favorable Tempo: 85 - 175bpm
Favorable Range: F#3 - C#5

I also recently obtained Miku's vital stats and lets list them out for comparison:

Age: 16
Height: 158cm
Weight: 42kg
Favorable Genre: Idol pops / Dance pops
Favorable Tempo: 70 - 150bpm
Favorable Range: A3 - E5

This week, preorders for this upcoming piece of Kagamine Rin Vocaloid software has taken the #1 ranking spot at Sofmap PC, indicating her popularity. I can't really figure out why since she is voiced by some Seiyuu from the Idolm@ster series (some Japanese arcade game where you raise a Pop Idol) and I do not really know who she is. At first, I didn't really like her character design and voice compared to Miku, but after listening to some of her songs, I feel that she might have potential.

Here are some videos featuring Kagamine Rin's voice & fan art:

Also if you've noticed, I've imbedded some Miku gadgets into my blog sidebar for kicks (I highly recommend 涙にさよなら). The overall response from the English-speaking VOCALOID fan community is that Miku beats Kagamine hands down, but some Japanese may be able to pull off an incredible rock song with Kagamine so who knows?

That said, Hatsune Miku is still top in my books.. moe looks and semi sexy voice beats loli looks and loli voice anyday.

ODEX got pwned?

2007-11-18T20:27:00.000+08:00

Full Image from teh law webby (clicky to enlarge):

The hearing was 2 days ago on the 16th, and I've been watching the papers but looks like there is a media blackout on the outcome.

Interestingly, Odex's main website (www.odex.com.sg) is offering FREE ANIME DOWNLOADS of some anime notably popular Shounen fare like D.Grayman and Seto no Hanayome.

Speculation 1:

ODEX lost and they are going to fuck off soon.

Speculation 2:

ODEX still lost and are trying different methods to get money now i.e. LEGAL METHODS.

Either way they lost. HAHAHA. Losers.

Compare what another local anime licensor Blue Max is giving us compared to ODEX crap (not worthy of being posted on my blog) and we all know if they don't improve, they'll be down for the count (click to enlarge):

Front

Inside

Back

Extras Booklet (shows how Hoshi no Koe was made using Photoshop on a home PC)

Yes, I bought that. Worth every freaking cent since its Makoto Shinkai's stuff.

And I've recently started converting from fansubs to R1 (American licensed) DVDs from Amazon.com and gotta say nothing beats watching anime on DVD. Will probably do photoblogposts but take my word for it, 42 inch plasma TV anime beats 19 inch computer screen anime anyday. No matter whether its action anime or just slice-of-life types like Lucky Star.

VOCALOID2 KICKS ASS

2007-11-13T17:45:00.000+08:00

With programs like VOCALOID2, one has to wonder whether music artistes will be taken over by singing software. Or at least, these artistes will have to compete with such programs.

Not likely the case, unless almost everyone in the world can appreciate modern Japanese visual culture. However, even with a lack of appreciation of visual culture, the audio aspect is still very powerful.

I've spent almost my entire dismount poring over Hatsune Miku's latest songs on YouTube (just search 初音ミク). The Japanese are actively churning out original pieces like this one, currently my second favourite Hatsune Miku piece:

...and gawds. Its excellent. Especially if you can appreciate the visual imagery supporting Hatsune. But even if you can't, its a damn well composed song.

This is my third favourite piece now titled Reset. I don't know who sang it originally though:

I've obtained the MP3 encoded version of Reset, and wow. Its extremely good on earphones full blast. Really good.

At this rate, you can have good singles out every day instead of having to wait at least a month for a singer to churn out an excellent one. I had a blast with Reset. The implications are huge...

Millions of VOCALOID2 users can churn out hundreds of Hatsune Miku songs in a very short time. If I was a Japanese pop singer or Seiyuu right now, I'd be damned worried. Seriously. Especially since a significant proportion of the Japanese population are die-hards about their own beautiful 2 dimensional visual culture.

And oh yeah, I finally got my hands on the Hatsune Miku version of VOCALOID2. If I figure out how to use it I might compose some Hatsune Miku songs. Can't wait for it to download finish.

VOCALOID2's Hatsune Miku

2007-11-12T00:01:00.000+08:00

Seems that the Japanese can't get enough of Bishoujos. Here's Hatsune Miku from Yamaha Corporation's VOCALOID2 synthesizer program.

"Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application software developed by the Yamaha Corporation that enables users to synthesize singing by just typing in lyrics and melody.

In January 2007, Yamaha announced a new version of the software engine, Vocaloid2, with various major improvements in usability and synthesis quality.

Miku Hatsune (初音ミク, Hatsune Miku^?) is the first character in the Vocaloid Character Voice Series released on August 31, 2007. The name of the title and the character of the software was chosen by combining Miku (未来, Future^?), Hatsu (初, First^?), and Ne (音, Sound^?).^[1] The data for the voice was created by actually sampling the voice of Saki Fujita, a Japanese voice actress. Unlike general purpose speech synthesizers, the software is tuned to create J-pop songs commonly heard in anime, but it is possible to create songs from other genres."

Source: Wikipedia

Hatsune Miku's birth (with her singing Fun Fun Dayo from Lucky Star BGM album):

This is my favourite song rendered by Miku-chan which is actually an aca pella rendition of Hare Hare Yukai from Suzumiya Haruhi:

Other songs performed by Miku-chan include:

Ievan Polkka

Shows that VOCALOID2 can synthesise non-Japanese songs.

1000％SPARKING! (JPOP song I'm not familiar with)

Some song from Princess Mononoke

You can always YouTube 初音ミク (Hatsune Miku) for more stuff as Japanese users create and upload them as it is a relatively new software.

Looks like a very powerful next-gen software that are gonna kill midi-sequencers everywhere.. and it ain't cheap. Base price without shipment is SGD140... erk.

Uncyclopedia

2007-11-11T21:26:00.000+08:00

I bet everyone has heard of Wikipedia, the free content encyclopedia, but have you heard of Uncyclopedia the content free encyclopedia? Linky:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Unlike Wikipedia, the anime-related posts in Uncylopedia are rather lousy and uninformative, but there's a hell lot of other good stuff. My favourites:

Singapore Armed Forces, the most powerful military in the world - http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Armed_Forces

"The Singapore Armed Forces (abbreviated: SAF) is the most powerful military organization in the world because it has never lost a single war (although it has never been in any)."

Lee Kuan Yew (Robo-Lee) - http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew

"Lee Kwan Yew (1032 A.D. - ???), formerly the Prime Minister of Singapore and currently the Uber Prime Minister (also known as MM Lee (Mickey Mouse Lee)) of the aforementioned country is an interdimensional cyborg and Immortal of unknown origin."

Japanese Self-Defense Force - http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Japan_Self-Defense_Forces

"The Japanese Self-Defense Forces is currently the most powerful and most technologically advanced military in the world. In addition to powerful fighting mech, each infantry unit is a highly trained ninja, also trained in multiple martial arts styles."

I was laughing till the point of tearing the first time I read these... roflwaffles!!!!

Mag Mell

2007-11-05T14:00:00.001+08:00

Taken from Wikipedia:

"In Irish mythology, Mag Mell ("plain of joy") was a mythical realm achievable through death and/or glory. Unlike the underworld in some mythologies, Mag Mell was a pleasurable paradise, identified as either an island far to the west of Ireland or a kingdom beneath the ocean. In its island guise it was visited by various Irish heroes and monks forming the basis of the Adventure Myth or "echtrae" as defined by Myles Dillon in his book Early Irish Literature. This otherworld is a place where sickness and death do not exist. It is a place of eternal youth and beauty. Here, music, strength, life and all pleasurable pursuits come together in a single place. Here happiness lasts forever, no one wants for food or drink."

Mag Mell is also, incidently, the name of opening song for both the game and anime versions of CLANNAD. And I feel that its damned beautiful, so I'm embedding the audio and visual versions here for you guys to enjoy. Here is Kyoto Animation's interpretation of Mag Mell, followed by Key's...

Kyoto Animation (Anime):

Key (Game) :

Full version of the game OP can be found on the CLANNAD OST:

I've found the YouTube Full version:

Reembedding the full game OP:

The full version of the 2007 remix used in the anime is here (uploaded by me):

Reembedding the remix animation:

Here is a rough translation of the lyrics. Translations are taken from forums.animesuki.com and SS-Eclipse's script. Romanji was transcribed by SS-Eclipse where possible. Bridge and parts not transcribed by SS-Eclipse was transcribed by me with aid of CLANNAD soundtrack booklet, so if you can spot any errors pls tell me:

Suki tooru yume wo mite ita yawarakai eien (I was watching a crystal clear dream; an eternity so tender)
Kaze no youna, kasuka na koe ga (The faint, wind-like voice)
Takai sora kara boku wo yondeiru (Is calling me from the high sky)

Kono mama tobi tateba doko ni datte yukeru (If I take off while like this, I can go anywhere)

Hikari no naka yurameita kotoba mo omoi mo zenbu (Then in the light, everything, words and thoughts that sway in the light)
Nokosazu tsutaete kitto (Surely, I’ll unreservedly tell you)

Futashi kana kimochi wo idaku; doushi te mo fuuande (I embrace an uncertain feeling; I feel uneasy no matter what)
Imawamada shiranai kedo (I still don’t know now)
Itsuka sono meni futsuru toki ga guru (But someday, the moment when I’ll reflect in your eyes will come)

Sekai wa suzu iteru (The world continues on)
Kimi wo mizashi nagara (while I’m gazing at you)

Kasaneta te to te no naka ni (If we can see a little future)
Chiisana mirai ga mietara (Within our joined hands)
Kiyoku wo saa toki hanatou (Then c’mon, let’s release our memories)
Massugu na kokoro no seki ni (Because there’s a time that connects to)
Tsunagaru jikan gaa arukara (The tip of my straightforward heart)

Bridge:

Zuetai asa no himo ; Maiwazu ni susunde yukuyo (Even on the day of a cold morning, I’ll move forward unhesitatingly)
Itamimo kana shimimo mikata ni kaenagara (While I turn pain and sorrow into my allies)

Kimi wo tarashi te iru daikiga mada dakienainara (If the atmosphere that illuminates you hasn’t disappeared yet)
Boku wo matte ite shizukani mioroshite (Then wait for me and quietly look down)

Kasaneta te to te no naka ni (If we can see a little future)
Chiisana mirai ga mietara (within our joined hands)
Hikari no naka yurameita kotoba mo omoi mo zenbu (Then in the light, everything, words and thoughts, sway in the light)

Harukana kimi made nokosazu tsutaete kitto (Surely, I’ll unreservedly tell them to the distant you)

Seems that CLANNAD is quite the complicated story with a type of heaven mixed into the theme of family. Episode 5 has been the funniest so far, and even though the animation probably isn't as good as Kanon 2006, the overall feel is great. Can't wait for more episodes to air ^^

Light blue is good. It is verryyy good.

2007-11-01T17:28:00.000+08:00

Since I can't blog CLANNAD episode 4 without revealing huge MAJOR freaking BIG lieutenant-colonel godamn motherfucking spoilers, I thought I'd blog the highlight of episode 3.

Light blue is my favourite colour now. And probably will always be. Bwahaha.

Incidently, every Friday night in Singapore is happy CLANNAD night, so look out for it. Its so popular that 3 teams of fansub groups are working on them to get the translations out asap.

I highly recommend SS-Eclipse as they have done a competent job with Kanon 2006 as well. And pls don't anyhow trust any fansub groups as the latest internet drama has revealed, this is not a good idea.

Also, CLANNAD wide-screen just aired recently an exclusive station, and fansub groups are re-releasing the wide-screen version as a result. Pls check it out as it is a lot better than the full screen versions. Read this blogpost for a comparison:

http://abanzai.animeblogger.net/2007/10/30/spot-the-differences-clannad-ws/

Kyou's 2 kick combo beats Tomoyo's 700+ hits anyday.

P.S. I watched this Seeker movie with Brian SeeToh on his half-day off and it is THE most cliche movie ever with even Mr Clicheman himself spewing cliche quotes all over the place. So if you somehow got duped into watching it look out for Mr Clicheman. Its freaking obvious so don't worry, you won't miss him. But it was free anyway thanks to Brian's vouchers so who cares man.

Can't wait for Minami-ke episode 4

2007-10-28T17:04:00.000+08:00

BLOG LAYOUT UPDATE: Looks like Blogger FINALLY brought over the labels function from what Wordpress has been doing for a damn long time. So I've added it to allow my visitors to better navigate through my blog. You guys can use it to recount posts on a particular topic as well. For example, if you wanna see what I've been saying about only Minami-ke or CLANNAD or my Army Life, you can click on the respective labels.

I also highly encourage everyone to begin adding labels to your blogposts to better structure your blog and allow it to be more easily accessible.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, we resume with our latest blogpost.

Momentum = Mass X Velocity

Blogging momentum = Rest X Speed of typing

Ok abit lame but...

As you might have guessed, my blogging momentum has been cut because I just finished my hell week again where I had to stay in on Saturday (yesterday) and go back to work tommorrow after a short dismount at home. Plus there is that stupid exercise which I can't elab on. Although this time round I've reduced the down time to abt 7 days?

I just watched finished Minami-ke episode 3 and saw this in the preview for episode 4:

I've recently found the scanlations for the Minami-ke manga, and lets have a look at one of the character descriptions:

Haruka-neesama has been getting very little attention lately, so its all the better that we add in a perverted fuck to spice things up. However, I'm starting to appreciate the lives of the younger sisters better even though they're godamn kids.

Full character descriptions (click to enlarge):

Minami-ke is a Seinen slice-of-life manga that depicts the lives of 3 sisters who have (maybe) lost their parents leaving the eldest sister to take responsibility for the well being of the younger ones.

Move over Colonel Sanders, we now have Major Takano!

2007-10-20T12:56:00.000+08:00

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai episode 14 is finger-licking good!

LOLOLOLOLOL

And people say anime can not be as violent as Prison Break! My ass lolz!!!

With the start of the Matsuribayashi-hen arc, I have also noted some frame changes in the opening animation, especially this frame:

Speaking of the opening animation, I think the song kicks ass so much that I'm gonna import the singles CD sometime next month. Full details of the song has been captured in this screenshot (sang by the same person who did the opening song for the first season of Higurashi):

CD case artwork (click to enlarge):

You can watch the OP here:

Full Details of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai:

Demographic: Seinen
Adapted from: Doujin non-adult Visual Novel
Software Company: 07th Expansion
Genre: Harem, Horror, Mystery, Moe
Animation Studio: Studio Deen
Started Airing: 6th July 2007

Minami-ke's Haruka-neesama is HOT

2007-10-17T21:43:00.000+08:00

That pretty much sums up the plot of Minami-ke, which is virtually no plot at all. And I'll leave technical details are at the end of my blogposts from now on.

Chiaki the youngest sister, who is still in elementary school, keeps asking Haruka what "doing it" is all about.

Basically about the lives of the 3 Minami sisters. The eldest sister (Haruka) is HOT. I mean waaayyy hot. And although I almost declared Kujibayashi Kyou from CLANNAD as my wife to my sis when we were watching episode 2 (LOL), Haruka-neesama is a really huge distraction.

Haruka is damn cute when she struggles with her own girlish embarrassment of explaining to her youngest sister what "doing it" really is like.. hahah.

I feel Haruka's the main reason to catch Minami-ke, although that would be quite an unfair statement because all 3 of the sisters are very well designed. Although I won't be describing the other 2 because I don't really care that much about them, although Kana is really damn funny.

I don't think any guys would not like something like this. Chiaki admires her eldest sister beyond normal levels of affection, much to Kana's dismay.

You can watch the opening to the anime here:

Full Details of Minami-ke -

Demographic Targeted: Seinen
Adapted from: Manga
Mangaka: Coharu Sakuraba
Genre: Slice-of-life
Serialised in: Young Magazine (2004)
Anime Started Airing: 7th October 2007

CLANNAD episode 2

2007-10-14T02:01:00.000+08:00

LOL move over Chun Li!!!

BEST...EPISODE...YET

SAF tennis inter-formation results

2007-10-13T17:01:00.001+08:00

I've mentioned here I'm involved in some inter-form competition and it has FINALLY ended a few days ago. I'm yet to get my trophy because due to duty, I couldn't go down to get it. Our conveyor was supposed to deliver it to our pass office, but never heard anything about it.

And anyway, there was this fucking private who pissed me off badly (for being more than 20 mins late) so I gave him a good one. One of my lance corporals said he would have nightmares about me which I don't really care about. So I pretty much forgot about everything.. until now. That is.

I'll post the ones I know so far without any in-depth description. Anyway I don't think anyone on the MINDEF e-forums knows my blog so no problem. Should not be flamed.

I'm playing for the MINDEF or JOINT formation btw, the logo which has the army, navy and airforce logos integrated. The tournament format is Round Robin.

Group Stage:

MINDEF vs 6 DIV: 5-0
MINDEF vs CSSCOM: 3-2
MINDEF vs RSAF 1: 5-0
MINDEF vs RSAF 2: 3-2
MINDEF vs ARTILLERY: 4-1
MINDEF vs ARMOUR: 0-5

Semi-finals Stage:

MINDEF vs RSAF 2: 4-1

So we got 3rd in the end.

And one of the players in armour really looks like a leopard tank. Sheesh.

10th of October is MOE day!

2007-10-10T21:41:00.000+08:00

The Wikipedia definition for moe is:

Moe (萌え^? /mo'e/, pronounced "mo-eh" literally "budding", as with a plant) is a Japanese slang word originally referring to fetish for or love for characters in video games or anime and manga. For example, 眼鏡っ子萌え, meganekko-moe, "glasses-girl moe", describes a person who is attracted to fictional characters with eyeglasses. Since then, the term has come to be used as a general term for a hobby, enthusiasm, or fetish (non-sexual)—鉄道萌え, tetsudou-moe, "train moe", is simply a passionate interest in trains.

But actually, if an anime character is counted as moe as long as it looks like something out of Manabi Straight!, Lucky Star, Ichigo Mashimaro and most Bishoujo game characters such as the characters found in CLANNAD or KANON. These characters appear more frequently in Seinen anime as opposed to anime targeted at other demographics (such as Shounen and Shoujo).

Manabi from Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! "Hajimaru yo!!!"... into another moe anime. That is.

Voice also plays an important role in a MOE character with Seiyuus (or voice actresses) such as Horie Yui and Nonaka Ai being chosen frequently for such roles.

This is however the simple explaination, as some characters may give some people a moe feeling while the same characters may not be moe to others. The generally agreed moe characters are in the titles above though.

Psycho-moe, a new fetish that is induced when moe characters kill each other. This character is Rika from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, a moe anime with mystery and horror elements mixed in.

And actually, with the advent of Suzumiya Haruhi's Mikuru and the insanely popular Lucky Star, the current trend in anime now is moe anime. There is moe anime popping up everywhere from the blatantly obvious MOETAN to the Bishoujo game adaptions like CLANNAD which are considered less extreme.

Just 8 months back, each season of had only 1 or 2 moe anime. But now moe is exploding all over with 5 or 6 titles this season itself.

Why is today MOE day?

Today is the 10th of October, so if you write that in Japanese (or Chinese/Kanji) you get 十月十日.

So if you write it out like this:

十十
日月

You get MOE (萌)! XD

To celebrate moe day, I was planning to go Orchard Kino to get volume 3 of Manabi Straight!... but I never made it. My initial plan was to go Ang Mo Kio to pick up Symphonic Rain, which was not out of stock thankfully. Then it got too damn late so I decided to turn back to Jurong East instead.

Well I did get Doujin Work (considered moe) 4Koma manga while exploring North Point (Yishun) though, which Sze Wai can testify to. Met him on his nights off, right Sze Wai? lolz.

And btw if you find the 萌 word on any Chinese manga, it actually refers to the word moe in Japanese and not Chinese. Probably lead to quite abit of confusion in the Chinese manga world as apparently this imprint is not taking off well. Too bad for me lor.

If you think I made up this crap myself, I didn't. Here are the sources:

http://heiseidemocracy.com/2005/12/07/the-moe-image/
http://www.moeside.net/weblog/2007/10/10/happy-moe-day/
http://www.alafista.com/2007/10/09/happy-moe-day/
http://abanzai.animeblogger.net/2007/10/10/news_moeday/

West Coast Park is not boring. West Coast Park is FUCKING boring.

2007-10-09T22:15:00.000+08:00

The blogpost title was derived in the grand tradition of my platoon commander back in School of Provost (now Military Police Training School or MPTS) Staff Sergeant Lee Kian Tiong.

"No.. you guys are not late. You guys are FUCKING late. Chee bye."

I mean really. I was on leave today and spent the time mostly indoors watching the first episodes of October's anime. ef, another major game adaption made by Jap game company Minori to compete against CLANNAD, isn't subbed yet which is a huge disappointment. Mokke stinks, even though Madhouse animated it. The only thing that made an impression on me was Blue Drop although it isn't good enough to be blogged. And I didn't watch Maple Story in case you are wondering.

So in the evening I decided to take my rusty old bike out for a spin. Haven't rode a bike since Haruhi knows when. And guess what, the right brake is spoiled now.

I heard some good things from my sister about West Coast Park having some new attractions, like a pedal car rental service or something? So decided to pedal there. Heck there isn't any other place to go to anyway.

Man the seat is definitely too small, gave me major freaking butt cramps. And due to lack of cycling my knee caps hurt very quickly. But after pushing on for awhile the pain wore off quickly. The brakes were definitely not working well and I think gave me additional unneeded pressure, making it exceptionally hard to push on.

I think I need a new bike.

Anyway, halfway there I stopped at the market opposite Ginza (now under renovation) and discovered that there is some shop selling Taiwan and China licensed visual novels. A very nice find indeed, except they did not sell Symphonic Rain. Looks like I'll have to make a trip down to Ang Mo Kio next dismount.

So I continued on to West Coast Park. Having not been there for perhaps more than a year now (not been there since I enlisted) I had some nice images floating in my head. Like I was actually thinking of East Coast Park. Heck even half of that was good.

And boy was I disappointed. There was absolutely nothing new, except for some half constructed structures.

The only thing that was truly interesting was the McDonald's. I guess that's the only reason to go there eh? Comforted myself with a 60 cent cone (wtf the price went up by 20%!?) though.

I rode through the park one full round and headed home, rewarded with a stiff back and painful ass.

I think a run around Pandan Reservoir would be more fun.

CLANNAD is all about FAMILY

2007-10-08T13:52:00.000+08:00

Did you know that clan means Family in Irish?

The central theme of CLANNAD is all about family, even though it is adapted from a Bishoujo game.

The original Bishoujo game was made by Japanese game company Key who are also behind the masterpieces AIR and KANON.

Ok, I've been fucking nuts about CLANNAD for the week or so up to its air date on the 4th of October. Its just that I'm too lazy or shag to blog about it all this time. But I really, really love this anime since its animated by Kyoto Animation after all, the people behind Suzumiya Haruhi and Lucky Star. Hontou ni desu!!!

I've watched the game OP and the anime OP before the anime aired about 50 times each so far... at home and in camp on my Creative Zen Vision W. The opening song by Riya from eufonius is freaking beautiful, and blends with the animation and CG artwork well. They can be viewed on YouTube here, even though you should really get the full HQ verisons from animesuki.com or stage6.divx.com for a fuller picture of CLANNAD's greatness.

HQ GAME OP: http://stage6.divx.com/user/Jubo/video/1194995/%5BJubo-Karaoke%5D-CLANNAD-Game-Opening

HQ ANIME OP: http://stage6.divx.com/user/Falcon2612/video/1710783/Clannad-TV-OP

YOUTUBE GAME OP (The game was released in 2004):

YOUTUBE ANIME OP (The anime started airing in FALL 2007):

From the OP you can see this is clearly a Bishoujo game adaption from all the girls in the OP. But according to veteran gamers of CLANNAD, the central theme is on family instead of a haremish show focusing on the relationship of the protogonists with the girls.

Here's some comparisons of the original game artwork in 2004 and the anime artwork in 2007:

First up is Nagisa, the main heroine in CLANNAD. First image would be from the game, followed by the next on in the anime.

I think its clear which one is better :) But still I want to try the game which has been translated 74% to English as of this blogpost. Translation patch should be out next year I hope?

Next up is Tomoyo, the ultra cool girl who can kick your ass at close combat anytime.

Lastly is Ichinose who looks intriguing and mysterious, but I've not seen her in the anime yet:

I just watched the first episode and have re-watched it 3 times already.. CLANNAD totally kicks ass and is probably the most hotly anticipated anime for this fall season.

Here's the ED which hammers in the family theme very strongly (it is actually a vocal edition of Nagisa's theme from the game):

Excellent stuff.. looks set to be another Kyoto Animation epic that will not fall short of KANON, AIR, The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi and of course the show that most recently ended, Lucky Star.

Gardenia + News you probably won't find on the papers

2007-09-20T19:18:00.000+08:00

As some people who I invited to my initial BBQ should know, I have moved from West Peak in West Coast Walk to Montery Park which is at West Coast Rise. My new residence is dead close to the Gardenia factory and sometimes I would catch whiffs of what's baking. Especially when walking home from the bustop.

I thought that it was only possible to smell the pungent fragrances from the bus stop, which is just opposite the factory. But I was wrong.

There were multiple nights when my father suspected there was a chemical spill nearby. I actually believed him, because the smell was overpowering and filled the corridors and rooms of my condo apartment. I had to sleep in air-con during those times as it was impossible to go to sleep breathing them in.

And yes, these days I dislike sleeping in air-con. It could be because I'm too used to the camp environment. But, there are methods to sleep in air-con in camp which I have exploited from time to time. Still, I prefer non-aircon at home.

Whether Gardenia spilled over a huge cylinder, I will never find out. It smells the closest to vanilla. But lately, the smells have been confined to outside the condo thankfully.

Anyway, remember sometime back I said I was watching this anime called School Days? Well I've watched up to episode 11 and it was supposed to end at episode 12, but the TV stations are postponing the date of airing it. Why?

The School Days anime is based on an adult computer romance simulation game, in which a girl is torn between her feelings for a boy and her selfless desire to help the boy pursue another girl. Some of the multiple endings of the game involve the characters killing and getting killed in violent manners.

So apparently the ending was supposed to be an incredibly violent one (I predict the other girl stabbing the pregnant one in the stomach), but due to the daughter of a Japanese police sergeant killing him with an axe when he was asleep, they have postponed it. More disappointing than shocking for me, as School Days has gripped me throughout every episode. English viewers have compared School Days to the anime version of the TV series "Days of Our Lives".

Source: Anime News Network

Well, I've actually downloaded the School Days game in Japanese, so I'll click through it blindly for the bad endings if the Japanese TV stations refuse to air the last episode. Sheesh.

Gunslinger Girl is GODLIKE

2007-09-03T23:15:00.000+08:00

Well, looks like the whole ODEX Saga is finally dieing down so I'm gonna stop reading up on it too often nowadays and thus should have more time to blog. And gosh I found a gem.

I recall downloading Gunslinger Girl very early in my anime watching career, but without any prior knowledge of anime I kinda decided I'd watch it later, which is like now. That's more than a year now. Hell, I regretted it. Ok not alot, but I kinda regret it now.

Looking through my external hard disk, I found that I classified Gunslinger Girl as a Shoujo (for girls) anime, which is way WAY off. In actual fact, Gunslinger Girl is Seinen (for men). That's the problem when you have inadequate knowledge of anime... you tend to dismiss the god-like series and watch all the lousy ones. Well that was me... last time. Not anymore thanks to Wikipedia (26% of articles on Wikipedia are anime-related).

I never thought about Gunslinger Girl almost ever again until I started heavily buying manga. The guy at Ani-Play (Sunshine Plaza) mentioned that American manga licensor ADV Manga had dropped Gunslinger Girl and Yotsuba&!... so heck I didn't really care about Gunslinger Girl but I do love Yotsuba&! and was rather disappointed I guess.

But guess wad! ADV managed to pick up the license for both series again. So I happily bought Yotsuba&! volume 4 and walked off happily...

Didn't really bother with Gunslinger Girl until my Thailand holiday. I had 2500 baht to burn and bought some manga from Kinokuniya. I thought the manga cover for Gunslinger Girl looked rather unique, so I decided to buy it since it was going quite cheaply as well for the heck of it.

I didn't read it until a week later (yesterday) and OMIGOSH. It rocked my world. Before a brief review on the series, some basic data on it.

Title: Gunslinger Girl
Mangaka: Yu Aida
Genre: Seinen, Science-fiction, Drama
Serialised in: Seinen manga magazine Dengeki Daioh (other serialisations include Yotsuba&!, Azumanga Daioh, Manabi Straight!, Ichigo Mashimaro, sola,)
Original Run: November 2002 – Present
Animation Studio: Madhouse Studios (currently doing Denno Coil)
Anime Adapted in: Late 2003 to Early 2004

The title may seem really dumb, but you have to understand that there are a few pointers to remember when the Japanese use English in their works:

1. They don't understand English very well.
2. They think English words are cool.

So basically, you have to excuse the Japanese for bad manga titles in English (Bleach?). This is due to the fact that if a Japanese can use an English word as a title, its already cool and hard enough. Japanese use Katakana to represent English words, and Gunslinger in Gunslinger Girl is actually not an orthodox Japanese Katakana word, so its already very cool in the Japanese sense.

Gunslinger is written like this in Katakana: ガンスリンガー· pronounced Gansuringā
Girl is a common Katakana word so it is nothing special: ガール pronounced Gāru

Gunslinger Girl is not simply all about girls with guns... it highlights an underlying philosophy that young girls are dependent on a role model and integrating into society. When their only role model is a special operative working for the government, young girls can become the most merciless and efficient killers.

The Italian government has created an agency that saves severely injured children from permanent hospitalization by putting them through what looks like a "rehabilitation program" on the surface. In truth, each child is hand picked by a cyborg handler (not much different from a dog handler) and given a robotic body to be trained to work for the agency in carrying out special ops.

What makes this series stand out is how even though each girl looks emotionless and mercilessly kills in any missions, they still retain their child-like behaviour off the field and are deeply affected if scolded by their handlers. Each cyborg treats her handler literally as a father and loves him as such. This is because they have no one else to turn to and thus devote their lives to perfecting their skill at using firearms and carrying out their missions as effectively as possible.

Even though MadHouse studios has been heralded as one of the best animation studios on Earth, I have to say that the manga itself gave me a much deeper impression and appreciation of Gunslinger Girl than the anime ever did. The manga is a must buy. Just look out for the ADV Manga imprint and Yu Aida's name... although volume 1 should not be easily available in Singapore by now. Volume 5 has been released.

Lol Update

2007-08-22T19:25:00.000+08:00

WTF I've lost my blogging momentum once again. Damn sad but I guess it happens. I'm not even updating my other blog, but I should be when the next season of anime starts. The series I'm definitely blogging is Kodomo no Jikan which I've blogged about before.

It all started with my hell week (of which I had to come back for 24 hours on Saturday). After that a few arguements on the net drained my energy, followed by the whole ODEX saga which is, by the way, one of the biggest local news issues now. So you should be aware of it unless you ignore the papers completely.. there is ODEX news on the local papers (The New Paper, The Straits Times and Today) almost everyday. And the links I provide are just a small sample of the total number of articles published.

Anyway this whole issue shows that Singapore is actually saturated with anime fans. But since cartoons are generally perceived as childish, I guess we go online to discuss it deeply. Plus nobody likes to analyse stuff in face-to-face conversations. We rather talk cock, which I do prefer to actually. Online and offline interactions have their purposes. And quite frankly, many people are misunderstanding this issue.

I swear that this RJC animeblogger (tj_han) is an attention whore, and will exploit anyone for his purposes. I don't wanna flame him in front of the eyes of the local anime community, but that's my conclusion about him. Even though he is in NUS now, and DarkMirage (another RJC animeblogger) is still in JC, I can honestly say that DarkMirage is much more mature than that idiot.

Anyways, I have a "deep" explaination as to why people in general see cartoons as childish and it is generally harder to talk about them. Us being 3-dimensional beings will naturally "look down" upon 2 dimensional-beings. This is similar to how a lot of us (especially girls who mostly think western pop culture is cool) still think Ang Mohs are superior to us. You can deny it rationally but there is still a generally feeling, which is linked to how we are genetically inferior. Anyway, if too many 3-dimensional beings think that 2-dimensional beings and entertainment is superior to 3-dimensional entertainment, if we use the theory of existence (of which something cannot exist if no one thinks about it), if too many 3-dimensional beings think about 2-dimensional beings, there may be a dimensional leak into our dimension since the power of the existence of the 2-D beings increases. To prevent this, 3-D beings bear a general disdain towards 2-D beings. This is naturally programmed into us. This explains why we generally look down on those who like anime compared to soccer for example.

Some updates on my real-life status. 3SG Hiro Ochi, now a detention barracks Military Police specialist, has pulled me and another guy in my section (CPL Mike Yong) to play some tennis inter-formation thing. And from the looks of it my OC approved it. At least, the tournament aspect. We have to train in our own free time. Kinda taxing, but since I lao jiao already shouldn't be a problem.

Don't really care whether I win or lose the games, which take place next month, but it would definitely be better if we win so we can appeal for training sessions.

And I guess people generally think that anime fans like me watch anime the whole day but... actually I'm watching about 3 series seriously now which are specifically Potemayo and School Days. Doujin Work rocks too but the subs are hell slow. So actually, I don't watch that much anime but sleep alot. And I have to tennis now actually.

I'm also watching alot of StarCraft replays and keeping up with StarCraft2 news... I'm really excited about it. Terrans and Protoss have been revealed... now for teh Zerg.

All these things combined together makes blogging a rather low priority lol...

I'm on overseas leave from 24th to 25th.. going to Thailand whee.

Ladder Theory

2007-07-30T01:45:00.000+08:00

This isn't for anyone who has not come to grips with reality, as it is a rather harsh theory and will probably hurt you (initially) if you are not prepared mentally.

I was reading a few blogposts over at tj_han's blog (www.riuva.com). Recently he has been posting up stuff on relationships and I stumbled upon this theory posted by one of his commentators.

Ladder theory is basically a sociological theory about adult male/female social interactions established in 1994. A really interesting one at that. You can just read this link:

http://www.intellectualwhores.com/masterladder.html

But if you're in a hurry, I've summarised some of the main points in this blogpost (mostly copy pasting).

Elementary Ladder Theory

Every time you meet someone you give them a quick mental rating. Just how this is done is based on your sex, like so:

Man's rating system:

60% - Looks
30% - Chances that she will pull out
10% - Other

Woman's rating system:

50% - Money/Power
40% - Attraction
10% - Things Women say they care about but don't (such as intelligence, honesty etc.)

The whole first interaction is simply gauging what chances this man has with this woman, and when he's decided how much he wants her compared to how good of a chance he thinks he has, he will rank her and put her on his ladder. The ladder is a metaphorical scale on which all females this man meets are ranked according to how badly he wants each one of them, with the woman he wants sex with the most at the top of the ladder, and women he wouldn't dream of having sex with at the bottom, or the abyss.

When a woman meets a man, the first thing that pops into her mind, be it consciously or subconsciously, is "Is this guy someone I'd want to have sex with, or is he good to just be friends with?" The whole first interaction is simply gauging if this man is worth her time as a sexual partner, or if he is worth her time to stay friends with, or if he is simply not worth her time at all. Unlike the man, women have a "bi-ladderal" system, or two ladders. One is the Good Ladder, on which all men she would like to have sex with are on, much like the man's ladder. The other ladder is the Friends Ladder, a ranking of all the guys she knows and likes as a friend, but would never have sex with. Ever.

At the bottom of and between both ladders is the abyss, which if a man tries to make a ladder jump from the Friends Ladder to the Good Ladder and fails, he will likely fall into, since once a woman has a male friend who suddenly tells her he wants her, things tend to go awry quickly and they split, or the man becomes unhappy and leaves her life, via a NEXT.

Are you an intellectual whore?

An Intellectual Whore is a man who a woman keeps around for intellectual purposes. She is uninterested in him sexually and considers him a friend. He probably wants to sleep with her, so he pretends to be her friend in the hope of one day getting sex.

Typically a IW will be at the very top of the friends ladder. Strive not to be one.

Some interesting terms:

IP - Intellectual Pimp: A woman who keeps several IWs around. Basically 99.9% of all women. She may or may not be aware of her IP position.
NB - Ninja Bitch: A very mean girl, but specifically, an IP who realizes she's in the IP position and abuses the priviledges
CB - Cuddle Bitch: A guy who gets the priviledge of cuddling with a girl he's interested in, but nothing more. This is typically seen as settling for less, and a cause for blue balls, since typically guys in this situation actually want to have sex with this woman and aren't being upfront about it.
KoD - "Kiss Of Death". A statement or action from a woman to a man telling him that she is in no way interested in sex or a relationship with him.

Enjoy reading up on this theory, and probably applying it to your real-life from now on :)

Local Animeblogger one of the top students in NTU

2007-07-25T20:14:00.000+08:00

http://bj0rn.animeblogger.net/download/2507HNR001.pdf

http://bj0rn.animeblogger.net/download/2507HNL002.pdf

Well, this proves the smart, mature ones appreciate anime to some degree, and the dumb, narrow-minded ones are stuck to their dramas and movies.

More evidence is of course from another animeblogger, who is argueably the most popular one now internationally, DarkMirage, a RJC student that has already attained JLPT 1. His blog is of course www.DarkMirage.com and one of his posts managed to hit 400 over comments.

I'm not saying I don't watch dramas and movies, but I always hold the view that it is inferior to the anime sub-culture (including manga, light novels and visual novels).

Anyway, the article is very badly written. ImpZ is clearly quite an Otaku (and quite lolicon) if you follow his blog enough. Shoddy journalism, but one step forward for Otaku-kind.

ImpZ's blog is http://that.animeblogger.net

This coincides with how 26% of content on Wikipedia is anime related. Intelligent people are ready and willing to make this information available to everyone. In fact, whenever I need info on any anime or manga before buying, Wikipedia is my number one site to check. It can probably be renamed animepedia now.

Zerg Versus Zerg

2007-07-13T18:10:00.000+08:00

I believe that one of the big reasons why there are not as many professional Zerg players as compared to Terran and Protoss players is because you have to face this match-up. Just say "ZvZ" to any StarCraft professional, and it is likely that he will get a huge headache.

While playing against Terran and Protoss is a matter of scouting ahead of time and countering with a pre-planned build and containing while teching to Hive, when two Zerg broods face of against one another, the situation changes drastically. In fact, there is no such thing as a "pre-planned" build order in ZvZ.

ZvZ is very complicated as anything is possible. Most of the time I go 12 Hatch versus Protoss or Terran and it works well. 12 Hatch is basically powering on drones until the 9th drone, make an overlord, send the 9th drone to scout if the initial overlord has not found the enemy. After the 12th drone is made, make a Hatchery either at home or at the natural expansion. Morph another drone back to 12 supply, then make a spawning pool.

In ZvZ, the person who makes more drones before the spawning pool is at an economic advantage. In order to gain this advantage, scouting is crucial. If you find your enemy with your drone, you must stick around until your overlord arrives to survey the situation. This is because the Zerg economy is unique in the sense that by making lesser drones, you harvest as efficiently as a Terran or Protoss player in the early game since you got 3 larvae to play around with. However, you lose this advantage against another Zerg player.

After the initial "spawning pool game", the player that loses the economic advantage is far from losing due to how dynamic this match-up is. While sticking with one build, which is usually Zerglings + Lurkers + Mutalisks or Hydralisks + Lurkers will work against Terran or Protoss, ZvZ is more like a vicious all out 5-way game of rock-paper-scissors. If you choose the wrong build, you will definitely lose. No matter how good your micro is. Superior micro works better towards Terran or Protoss.

Here are some commonly used ZvZ builds/strategies and their counters:

Zerglings + Hydralisks rush

If you are confident your micro is better, than you can also use lings and hydras to counter. Upgrades are essential.

Direct counter: Zerglings with upgraded carapace and Mutalisks with upgraded attack.

If you make Zerglings with upgraded attack you are screwed.

If you make Mutalisks with upgraded armour you are screwed.

You are screwed because every wasted upgrade costs you one mutalisk. Keep that in mind.

You can also make Sunken + Lurker defense and tech to Guardians, but that would allow your enemy to expand all over the map and tech to Hive so becareful with this option.

Pure Scourge + Zerglings

This is one of the most deadly ZvZ builds. The scourge will basically go overlord hunting, so you will find that you have no supply to make units. Then 100 zerglings will eat up your base.

Direct Counter: Scourge + Zerglings + Superior Micro XD

Building anything other than Scourge + Zerglings is suicide.

The player who upgrades ground attack and carapace more will win.

Just upgrade any air attack or carapace once and you will die.

Pure Mutalisks + Zerglings

Usually the player who gets the economic AND tech advantage will go Mutalisks + Zerglings. Why? Because both can attack ground units. This may sound dumb, but it means that the Muta + Ling player will try to kill the enemy spire. If they manage to disrupt your Spire build time or destroy it, you will have already lost the game. Scourge cannot do anything against a Spire as they cannot attack ground.

Direct Counter: Mutalisks + Scourge + Zerglings or Pure Scourge + Zerglings, depending on your play style and skill

Mutalisks + Scourge + Zerglings

Direct Counter: No direct counter, but please, PLEASE, PROTECT YOUR OVERLORDS. If he kills one overlord, the game is still salvageble. Losing 3 or 4 to the scourge will ensure your mutalisk count will never be more than his meaning you lose the game.

Mutalisks require 2 food each, and while morphing mutalisks you must morph overlords simultaneously to keep the rush going. Losing an overlord will cease all mutalisk production immediately, which is bad enough. Losing 3 or more is game over.

Seinen Ramen, and the future of this blog

2007-07-02T18:57:00.000+08:00

People reading this blog might be wondering why I've not been updating lately. Well... I wanted to reveal this at a later date, but I underestimated the wordpress.com community, and my new blog has been getting more hits than I expected.

I've gotten animeblogger.net hosting (using this blog to ask for it), and in preparation for it I've ported most of the anime related posts on this blog onto a wordpress.com blog to port to animeblogger.net

wordpress.com is superior to blogspot in many ways, especially for those who are incompetent at HTML editing. Unfortunately, during my time in school everyone thought blogspot was cool (as well as Bleach, and DOTA, and other trash), so its been quite hard for me to find a reason to change hosts, until now.

The title of my new blog is Seinen Ramen, and the address goes like this:

http://seinenramen.wordpress.com

You can read the about page to find out more about why I named the blog thus so:

http://seinenramen.wordpress.com/about/

When my animeblogger account is up, it'll be, obviously, http://seinenramen.animeblogger.net

Well, so what will happen to this blog? Well I guess I should revert it back to being a personal blog, but since I'm military that would be rather dangerous as I might blurt out classified stuff.

Whether this blog dies or not, time will tell. As for now, those who want to discuss anime related posts here can move over to my new blog and start commenting.

The new blog should be a team blog and I'm trying to recruit some veteran anime fans to cover next season's anime. Titles that should be appearing are Doujin Work, Kodomo no Jikan, MOETAN, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai, Piano no Mori, and School Days.

For now until my animeblogger account is up, I'll be re-watching Lucky Star and rushing my Lucky Star anime4Komas until my account is ready. The first anime4Komas for the first 2 episodes can be found here:

Episode 1
Episode 2

Episode 3 coming soon!

I think I'll blog more about hardcore gaming strats on this blog since I picked up StarCraft in preparation for SC2. Whatever makes me happy, lol.

The Religion of Suzumiya Haruhi

2007-06-26T11:03:00.001+08:00

This is largely a response to a recent blogpost on the anime blog Moe Check. I've been wanting to blog on the religious side of Suzumiya Haruhi but kind of forgot about it, until I read this blog post.

I'm a staunch believer of Haruhiism, even though I don't go around preaching it and being an idiot/lunatic. If you've been following the novels you'll realise it isn't all nonsense/fantasy but has roots in physics and maths. So if Haruhiism is rooted by physics and maths then it can't be wrong. I will be presenting proof of the scientific aspect first, followed by discussion of the religious aspect. Since religion is mostly open ended, those who are offended or whatever should try to argue otherwise.

As you would have noticed if u are observant enough, the opening sequence for the anime contains many mathematical, physical and chemical formulas.

Adapted from Trivia Wiki: The mathematical, physical and chemical formulas seen in opening animation are positronium, Lambda baryons, benzene ring, cyclohexanes, infinite number, Titius-Bode law, Planck's constant, Drake equation, time-dependent Schrödinger equation, Hubble's law, infinite product, definition of information entropy, large numbers¹, stationary Schrödinger equation, E=mc², probability axioms, definition of Laplace operator, the wave equation in one space dimension, and small numbers¹.

The formulae in the opening animation reflects how Nagaru Tanigawa writes his novels basing stuff on physics and maths instead of purely imagination. Yes, Suzumiya Haruhi was based on a series of light novels. To me, this series of light novels is the work of a genius. And the interesting thing is that Nagaru Tanigawa graduated from law school, and isn't actually trained in a particular science.

I'm going to focus on the Drake Equation. See whether you can find it in the above screenshot.

N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to communicate at any given time

R* is the rate of star formation in our galaxy

f_p is the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e is average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_l is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life

f_i is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life

f_c is the fraction of the above that are willing and able to communicate

L is the expected lifetime of such a civilization

Scientists have estimated the value of N to be around 0.1, which means that the chances of meeting intelligent aliens in this universe is close to zero.

In the Suzumiya Haruhi series, Nagato's masters have been attracted only to the human race because we are the only lifeforms in the known universe that can auto-evolve under Haruhi's guidance and power. That means even tho the universe is so vast, the entire universe does not contain intelligent, sentient lifeform except for us humans.

This is VERY MUCH MORE REALISTIC than say all the popular shows like Star Wars for example, which explores humans living together with intelligent lifeforms.

Now for discussion on the religious aspect. Even if I don't believe in Haruhiism, I at least believe in the model that Nagaru Tanigawa has constructed. Or rather, adapted into fiction.

There is a reason why Suzumiya Haruhi is beautiful/good-looking. From basic philosophy you need to experience truth to experience beauty. So if heaven is the "promised land" or whatever, then a representative of heaven has to be beautiful. In a sense, Suzumiya Haruhi is Nagaru Tanigawa's intepretation of Jesus.

Now for an explaination of her omnipotence and eccentricity. This means she is good at EVERYTHING. As a god among humans wud be, she chooses to hide these abilities before she attracts too much attention. Her omnipotence is not obvious, coz usually in a show or anime when someone is good at something it is made a huge fuss of. This depicts the maturity of SHnY, where u have to watch majority of the show and pick up clues before u conclude that Haruhi is indeed omnipotent.

Another quality of Haruhi is her benevolence. She uses her powers for good only, and she does so subconsciously (she isnt even aware of her powers). She is not a selfish b*tch as I have seen said on several forums. If someone does things for good subconsciously, it is obvious she or he is benevolent. Through Her actions, the members of the SOS brigade have grown slowly in their own ways. You can see them benefit from the growth. This is the micro effect of her benevolence. The macro effect is that she benefits the entire human race by helping us evolve slowly, by granting us esper-like powers for starters. I believe She has great plans for the human race. Mikurru is evidence on how advanced the human race has become, being able to travel back in time.

Religion has always been at loggerheads with science. But views are starting to change now. People are trying to integrate both, and this development has found itself into maintstream culture due to Nagaru Tanigawa and Kyoto Animation, and we shud be thankful for that.

If u have done Physics at 'A' levels, u probably have seen alot of physical constants. The ten-year-series has about 20 of those constants. I'm gonna choose simpler examples here:

Speed of Light in vacuum, c = 3 X 10^8 metres per second
Charge on an electron, e = 1.60 X 10^(-19) Coloumbs

These values will NEVER change. And there is a reason for this. Scientists have discovered that if u modify these physical constants by even a slight bit, the entire world as we know it will not exist. This means there is physical proof that some Great Being out there, which we humans recognise as God, has indeed created this world.

For example, if the Charge on an electron is 1.70 X 10^(-19) Coloumbs, then it cannot cannot orbit in most atoms. If electrons cannot orbit in most atoms, the atomic structure of most things in this world will be disrupted. Don't even talk abt humans, the ground we stand on could not even exist. This is a damn scary thought isnt it... now u see why Koizumi fears Her!

Light is much more profound so I won't discuss it here, but note that c, the speed of light in vacuum, is the physical limit for speed in our world. It has been proven nothing can go faster than light. Trust me, you wouldnt want to play around with the speed of light!

Ok I believe Haruhi is testing her powers at modifying these constants. If she does something too extreme, then the world will be destroyed and remade. But if she plays with the constants gradually under Kyon's guidiance, she can in fact give us humans powers, like becoming espers for example.

As you can see from this blogpost, I seriously do believe that someone like Haruhi can exist. Or at least a model for this religion is the religion that I would believe in. Once some scientist or mathematician proves that String Theory is not merely theory, a solid foundation for a pseudo-scientific religion will soon emerge.

Umz.. ok sorry for the minor hiccup. I will resume my previews for July anime that I'm interested in in one or two days, so bear with me.

July's Moe anime no.2: Kodomo no Jikan

2007-06-23T23:50:00.000+08:00

Pre-reading warning: Some of the thumbnails in this blogpost are not safe for work. In fact if you're under 18, why the heck are you reading my blog!?!?!

Pre-reading warning 2: It is also quite important that those that are too young don't see this blogpost because it has some very bad ideas that shouldn't go into heads containing immature minds.

Kodomo no Jikan tells the story of a precocious middle school girl and her best friend torturing a teacher she likes using insane methods. Actually, the entire class gets to bully the teacher and probably will psychologically scar him in the end. The manga is drawn by a woman and her fans call her Watashiya Kaworu-sensei.

Uhhh.. personally... I would think twice about teaching this class.

To get a basic idea of how bad the manga can get, Seven Seas entertainment was half-way through licensing the manga... until the president read the 3rd volume. Until now, fans of this series still want to assasinate him, and it blew up to a huge issue. More on the president's blog:

http://www.gomanga.com/blog/01.php

I have uploaded some scanlations to get a preview of what to expect. Its basically a NSFW Seinen Comedy, so be prepared for some laughs. From scanlation enthusiasts, it gets much deeper towards the end with alot of character development. In the beginning its the usual sit-com nonsense.

The pages run chronologically from left to right:

If you laughed at the 4th page, you should probably check this one out. Well, I definitely am. And after reading the entire first volume via scanlations, I am hell unhappy that Seven Seas dropped the license. I'm dieing to buy it. Sighz...

Just hope TokyoPop or Del Rey picks it up.

July's MOE anime no.1: MOETAN

2007-06-22T16:55:00.000+08:00

MOETAN stands for:

Methodology
Of
English
The
Academic
Necessity

...and is a collection of Japanese books with anime-style art aimed at Japanese Otaku trying to learn English. MOETAN has also been licensed and translated into Chinese to teach Chinese-speaking people English O_o The anime adaption is slated to air next month.

Official Website: http://www.ink-chan.com/

Well for those unfamiliar with Japanese honorifics like -san or -kun, -tan is actually a mispronunciation of -chan. The -chan honorific is usually used between girls to indicate closeness and girls also usually call their father's names followed by -chan. -tan is supposed to be a cute mispronunciation of -chan to indicate some playfulness as well. Thus MOETAN is actually a complex 3-way pun indicating a series of books with an acronym, featuring MOE artwork and probably a girl as well.

The books were first published in 2003 and the covers look like this:

The insides of the books look something like this:

"Each chapter consists of a short story, written in pure Japanese, concerning the adventures of "Nao-kun" (a high school student) and "Ink-chan" (a mysterious magical girl who arrives to help him with his studying), followed by a set of word examples.

Unfortunately, many of the English examples in the book are bizarre, unnatural, or downright incorrect. As such, the book has become a popular import for native English otaku or others who are amused by Engrish phenomena." - Wikipedia

An artbook (which is sold out T_T) titled LOLIPOP has been released by the illustrator of the books and scans of it can be found here (they are NOT SAFE FOR WORK):

http://gallery.aethereality.net/list/series/239/

English translation of the first part of the first book can be found here:

http://www.trevreport.org/moetrans.shtml

I went Kinokuniya about a month ago to find the MOETAN books, and there were only a copy of each left, around $24.50 each. I didn't buy them due to the outrageous price, but did have a flip through though. They are something like our Chinese vocabulary handbooks with a flowing storyline. In fact, the second book features short stories in full English. I read through the first few chapters and must say the English standard isn't lousy at all.

Well my personal comments are, looks like an incredibly cute show that should be watched for the MOE-ness like Manabi Straight! However the storyline seems abit dumb, so no surprise if I drop it halfway through the season.

If you're thinking of recommending this anime for younger audiences, think again. Because the books feature alot of phrases intended for an 18 and above audience. So, DON'T.

This is a TVCM for the MOETAN series of books back in 2003:

Doujin (amateur) Visual Novel Artist: milk cat

2007-06-19T01:14:00.000+08:00

The Japanese are a disturbed and insane bunch. If you've been keeping up with the news lately, you'll know that more Japanese school kids are whooping their teachers' asses, literally. During World War II, they experimented on enemy soldiers in numerous inhumane ways. Thankfully suicide rates have been dropping and fertility rates have been rising in the land of the rising sun.

That said, I have no illusions of living in Japan. Firstly, cost of living is high. Plus I have already established that the Japanese are a crazy bunch. If you still do not believe me, I will soon blog about an upcoming Seinen Moe anime titled Kodomo no Jikan as a demonstration of their insanity.

However, their insanity has given rise to their incredible imagination that I admire. They've came up with incredible works such as Battle Royale and Higurashi no Naku Koro ni that are understandably extremely violent, but contain underlying controversies and philosophies.

The Japanese mind, despite being mostly insane, is surprisingly innocent as well. I've come to this conclusion after watching enough anime and playing enough visual novels. In fact, I want to introduce to you guys a certain doujin VN artist who calls himself milk cat.

Quite a few Japanese visual novels and anime focus on childhood friends, and there is no other artist out there that perpetuates this innocence better than milk cat can. You can denounce the innocence of his works as childishness, or you can just appreciate their beauty and truth of who we were, and could still have been.

I believe milk cat is in his twenties now, but I'm not sure. In the afterword of his latest work, A Dream of Summer, he did mention he has a stable job. Thus he will not be doing doujin VNs for a living and will have lesser time to write VNs.

I recommend playing these VNs before bed to get full satisfaction out of them. In fact during key parts of the games, being interrupted will kill the experience considerably.

This is milk cat's homepage: http://milkcat.jp/introduction/hitonatu/index.htm

Without further ado, a brief introduction to his works:

A Dream of Summer

ヒトナツの夢

Download here: http://at2006.haeleth.net/game.php?id=16

Toshiki, the realist.
Mizuna, the girl he met on the roof.
And BROY, the school band whose members surround them.

It's the summer of their third year, and Toshiki must face not only the school festival, but also a promise that he may never be able to fulfil.

Gameplay tips: The true ending is ending 1, and it is quite difficult to get. I did not get ending 1 at first. Concentrate more on "braidy" and ignore other people if you want the true ending.

At Summer's End

なつのおわりに

Download here: http://at2006.haeleth.net/game.php?id=16

At summer’s end, we move into new classes; the season changes into autumn; the leaves change color; but what of our friendships and our loves?

Gameplay tips: A rather straightforward VN. Choices are not likely to change the main storyline much.

Moar Lucky Star Madness

2007-06-16T18:09:00.000+08:00

Its been a month plus since the start of this season of anime... and lol. Looks like I was wrong. In the end I'm only watching 3 series seriously instead of my proposed 7: Lucky Star, sola and Denno Coil. These 3 anime are must watch in my book, especially sola.

The longest series I watched before dropping was Nagasarete Airantou (9 episodes). Even though Horie Yui as Suzu was constantly good throughout, the bad animation and sub-par storyline made me drop it eventually.

Another series that I've been looking out for is Hitohira, but sadly there are no English fansubbers that have picked it up... zzzzzzz... and it ended already (12 episodes)

I wanted to keep up a steady pace with my Lucky Star anime4Komas but guess I'm ultimately LAZY lol. Next season I strive to blog at least one series seriously at English fansub speed. I will blog spoiler style, similar to the blog Anime on my Mind (anime.miao.us), so you'll have to already watch the episode to understand it and to avoid being spoilerised. If the anime is slice-of-life like Lucky Star, then there would be no spoilers so no worries.

Anyways enjoy this next insane live-action Lucky Star OP that I saw at Tsubaki's blog. Similar to the previous video, try not to watch before or after meals, or when you're sick:

July is coming and dedicated blogposts for titles that I will be watching are coming, so look out for them :)

Anime accounts for 26% of content on Wikipedia

2007-06-12T00:12:00.000+08:00

"Complete.com has recently taken a look at a break down of Wikipedia subjects. Surprisingly Anime accounts for a whopping 26% of its content, the single highest category of topics in Wikipedia.

Other categories include Sex and Pop Culture both tied at 16% and Music at 10%."

Source: http://www.madman.com.au/actions/news.do?method=view&newsId=917

Well, this has some serious implications.

One thing's for sure: if u need to search up anything about any anime or any anime jargon, Wikipedia is actually your best friend.

On a side note, Madman Entertainment has licensed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya for Australia.

My R1 Haruhi DVD + My Room + Manga Stash

2007-06-10T11:09:00.000+08:00

Well, I decided to take the regular edition because they were sent to Ani-Play by mistake. Plus I was only really interested in the Hare Hare Yukai CD and the actual DVD... not so much the ribbon and other stuff.

For full Limited Edition details go here: http://www.minaidehazukashii.com/?p=381

The episodes in the American licensed DVDs will run in Kyonological order, which means the order Kyon depicts in the episode previews. The order is almost chronological, except the chronological episode 11 was brought in front.

Anyway, if I wanted to watch it in the original Japanese broadcast order, I have already memorised it. So I can just switch DVDs at will.

Front of DVD and Hare Hare Yukai CD:

Back:

Inside:

Ok now that we've got that over with... here's the door to my room...

And behind it there's all my MP crap...

Here's my display shelf. I have a larger archive cupboard where I dump the rest of my stuff, but I'm not showing that one:

Top Shelf from left to right (Suzumiya Haruhi shelf):

Suzumiya Haruhi Chinese translated light novels which are The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Sighs of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Boredom of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Dissapearance of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Rampage of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Wavering of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Intrigues of Suzumiya Haruhi, The Indignation of Suzumiya Haruhi, DVD Episode 00, Volume 1 Regular Edition of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya from Bandai entertainment

On top of light novels: Hare Hare Yukai CD

Total money spent: $12 (average) X 8 + $8 + $44.60 + $17.90 = $166

Second shelf from the top (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni shelf):

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Chinese mangas: Onikakushi-hen volume 1 and 2, Watanagashi-hen volume 1 and 2, Tatarigoroshi-hen volume 2 (lent out volume 1), Onisari-hen volume 1 and 2

Total money spent: $6.50 X 8 = $52

Third shelf from the top (4Koma + Moe shelf):

Yotsuba! English manga volumes 1-3, Azumanga Daioh English manga volumes 1-2 (lent out volume 3), Lucky Star Chinese manga volumes 1-3, Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! Japanese manga volumes 1 and 2

Total money spent: $16 (average) X 6 + $8 (average) X 3 + $15 X 2 = $150

4th Shelf:

Genshiken English manga volumes 1-4 (lent out 5 and 6), Nodame Cantabile English manga, Nodame Cantabile live-action VCD, Wild Adaptor volume 1

5th Shelf:

Ichigo Mashimaro volumes 1-3, Ichigo Mashimaro OST, Welcome to the NHK volumes 1-3, Hayate no Gotoku Volume 1, Cromartie High School volume 1

Rena guards my archive cupboard lolz:

AND... the reply

2007-06-06T10:23:00.000+08:00

Original email: http://ckwiz.blogspot.com/2007/06/i-emailed-straits-times-journalist.html

hello Kian Wee.

lots of stuff. Wanted to highlight a few points:

"If ODEX becomes bankrupt, you will share some responsibility for your actions."

"foreigners are getting a bad impression of Singapore from this crackdown."

you seem to believe I have an interest in how well/badly Odex is doing, or an agenda to make Singapore look good.

The truth is: not really.

If there is interesting news, I report it - that's what reporters and newspapers do.

And since I don't have shares in Odex, if it dies, it dies.
If it does well, it's not likely I'm going to get any free anime or a big hamper from them either.

/shrug.

you've also mentioned that true fans like yourself will buy.
That's good, if they buy legit, from here, or elsewhere, that's the way it should be - as I mention, I don't really care if Odex does well or goes under - especially if it's because, as you (amongst others) claim, the product sucked and continues to suck.

PS: Odex claims that they've gotten better. I don't know, tbh, since I don't watch anime.

But those that pirate without buying, because it's a way to cheat the people who actually put in blood and sweat into making the anime, well, that would be wrong.
(Although, talk about a losing battle - being Singaporean we all know the realities of piracy here.)

The other problem is: how many are willing to go on record to say Odex sucks, and be named doing so?
Because you know, it's easy to say so anonymously on an Internet forum, but very few are willing to do so in a newspaper and face possible defamation lawsuits for doing so.
If the community wants to make this point, then someone has to have the balls to do so (not pointing fingers btw, just a fact when controversial stories appear - I've gotten over 10 letters re: anime piracy story so far, you are among the three with apparently real names, others just want to rant at me/odex/government/etc. anonymously).

there are likely to be follow-ups as the lawsuit progresses. If you are interested in speaking to me in more detail, give me a number I can call you at?

regards,

Chua Hian Hou
Correspondent, The Straits Times
Email: chuahh@sph.com.sg
Mobile: *********

My reply to this:

I appreciate your reply, and I do not assume that you are interested in anime. I am a soldier and I have the "serve and f*ck off" mentality and I know you're just doing your job. I am also aware no one wants additional trouble on the job. The problem is that your article contains many many flaws, and there are more than enough people who care to dig up the real truth.

The thing is that you have not done your job properly. If you got all your facts right and report was less bias and more accurate, no one would actually bother. I would also have refrained from being vitriolic.

We, the fans, are being victimised by a bunch of shallow businessmen who are not only ensuring their own doom, but also the doom of our hobby locally. Its a lose-lose situation which we are trying to avoid. Bad reporting can only help worsen the situation.

I hope the sources I provided will aid in producing a better article for the local community. My handphone number is 82687790 and I would not mind talking to you about this.

There is huge money to be made and we are willing to pay, but ODEX has to improve their products. It is not the fansubs that are the problem, they actually act as free advertising.

Good luck and I look forward to talking with you. Although if you prefer we can always communicate through email, because I work a shift job and thus it might not be convenient for both of us communicate when needed. I would prefer that you call me only if it is very urgent.

Yours Sincerely,

CPL CHUA KIAN WEE

Keep your fingers crossed. Lol. And if anyone wants to say anything pls email me at chua.kianwee@gmail.com or ckw.devours.ckt@gmail.com

I emailed a Straits Times Journalist...

2007-06-02T15:43:00.000+08:00

...who wrote this article.

His name is Chua Hian Hou.

This is my email. I know I may not be fully knowledgeable about the issues, but I'm doing something about this.

I say we nuke his inbox. Some foreigners if possible.:

I am an anime fan currently serving my nation.

Overall, I feel that your article will have a positive effect on the anime scene in Singapore. It will shock those who do not know much about the fansubs they are downloading to abandon them and buy the stuff ODEX is selling.

However, do note that we are in the golden age of the internet now. Information is freely passed around and is difficult to be restricted, unless you want to mess around with human rights.

Not many people in Singapore know this, but there exists an English animeblogosphere. It can be accessed at www.animenano.com . Many insightful articles and reviews of all types can be found in this blogosphere. The fact is about 90% of English animebloggers are Singaporean. The actual anime fandom is online, not offline. Those who are caught are likely to be the offline types who do not have access to information.

As they say, knowledge is power. This is the reason why " 'pirates' here download more anime files than any other country except the United States." This is NOT ridiculous, considering the Americans themselves look to the animeblogosphere for information.

In fact a famous Singaporean animeblogger who goes by the online alias DarkMirage has reported in a blogpost (http://www.darkmirage.com/2007/03/13/net-infamy-windows-100-interview/ ) that more Americans visit his blog than Singaporeans.

Do note that foreign anime fans all over the world look to the animeblogosphere for their daily dose of anime news. This may seem like a small thing in Singapore, but already foreigners are getting a bad impression of Singapore from this crackdown. To direct your attention to several blogposts highlighting this issue:

http://animedesho.animeblogger.net/?p=2539#comments

http://www.darkmirage.com/2007/05/30/apocalypse-now/

http://haitaka.googlepages.com/home2

http://www.riuva.com/?p=630

http://www.riuva.com/?p=631

http://www.riuva.com/?p=628

http://www.darkmirage.com/2007/01/09/an-open-letter-to-odex/

As you can see, the power of online reporting far outshines your pathetic article. Your article only serves to further agitate the local and international anime community. It is a very simple matter for one of these influential animebloggers to scan and post your article online.

If ODEX becomes bankrupt, you will share some responsibility for your actions. Already many anime fans hate ODEX to a very deep degree as can be seen from discussions all over the net:

http://sgcafe.com/showthread.php?t=33862

http://sgcafe.com/showthread.php?t=33797&highlight=odex+peter

http://www.chuangyi.com.sg/board/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1180587287/0#0

http://www.chuangyi.com.sg/board/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1179751065/0#0

We are not the pirates you deem us to be. Many of us actively import expensive DVDs of anime series that we are passionate about. The people who download illegally and prefer fansubs to DVDs are likely the "outsiders" that are not passionate enough about anime. The merit of your article is to eliminate these outsiders.

Entire industries are surviving and built due to the proliferation of fansubs. The primary reason why ODEX products, and other anime products in Singapore, are selling is due to the proliferation of fansubs. Honestly, most Singaporeans would never dream of buying Japanese cartoons unless they have experienced them for free. ODEX's marketing has always been almost non-existent. Fansubs are providing the free marketing and now the AVPAS wants to eliminate this. And from reliable sources, I don't think ODEX has enough funds to kick up a marketing campaign.

I also found it interesting that you failed to mention ODEX's VCDs in your article. There are only about two or three anime titles released on ODEX DVDs. However, almost a hundred titles are released on their VCDs. If you read the above threads and/or go out and sample some VCDs you'll get a basic understanding why most of us would rather die than purchase ODEX products. And due to the bad reputation ODEX has built up over the years, it is only natural that we are reluctant to purchase their DVDs.

As you can see, you're treading extremely dangerous waters here. You can choose to either be more transparent, or choose your words more wisely.

We will be watching what you, or your colleagues, write in the future.

"Anime fans do not need ODEX, nor fansubs, to survive. ODEX needs anime fans to survive." - modified from http://haitaka.googlepages.com/home2

MINDEF Security Garangness UPPED!!

2007-05-30T21:33:00.000+08:00

Come this Friday if you visit MINDEF, you'll notice some significant changes to the security element.

Gombak Base Commander has passed the directive that all personnel on duty exposed to the external environment will have to be dressed in SAF Long NO.4 camouflage uniform. No exceptions.

If personnel wish to patronise the canteen, they will have to fold to SAF smart NO.4 uniform out of view of public eye before doing so. Personnel on duty at side gate must stop those who do not comply.

LAN JIAO... now everyday will be sauna for me. Looks like the dengue fever scare is getting worse.

Well the good news is that... I won't have to wear NO.3 on Standby shifts. But I duno whether its an improvement. It really depends on whether you prefer a sauna or an extremely tight fitting, uncomfortable uniform.

Well... I'm getting my 3IC to push for a change of headgear from beret to jockey caps. Have you tried wearing a berret in a warm humid environment for 3 hours straight? Its not fun. Jockey caps are definitely more welfare. Plus, a soldier in long NO.4 wearing a beret just looks like cock. Jockey cap definitely more garang.

STEAM....

Denno Coil 1

2007-05-29T22:06:00.000+08:00

Direct Link to Torrent site to sample: http://a.scarywater.net/lunar/

Air Date: 12th May 2007
Genre: General Science Fiction / Educational
Director: Mitsuo Iso (debut)
Animation Studio: Madhouse Studios
Official Anime Site: http://www.tokuma.co.jp/coil/
Adapted from: This is an orignal animation production.

Dennō Coil (電脳コイル Dennō Koiru, lit. Computer Coil or Electric Brain Coil), Coil - A Circle of Children. It depicts a near future where Augmented Reality (AR) technology has just begun to enter the mainstream. The series takes place in the fictional Daikoku City, a hotbed of AR development. It follows a group of children as they use illegal AR visors to unravel the mysteries of their half real, half Internet environment It follows a group of children as they use illegal AR visors to unravel the mysteries of their half real, half Internet environment. The world displayed in the AR visors contains games, virtual pets, and also Internet viruses. The children collaboratively interact with and reshape the digital landscape using software tools.

Denno Coil has been in development for over a decade, and the animation quality is very good to say the least. Screenshots do not do justice to this Madhouse Studios production. I highly recommend downloading the anime in full instead of watching it on a video streaming site.

This is a Denno Inu, or Cyber Dog, an example of a Denno pet. As you can see physical objects can pass through the dog.

A child uses an illegal AR visor shaped like a pair of glasses to locate a Denno Neko, or Cyber Cat.

A Denno virus faces off with a Denno pet.

A Denno virus surveys an Obsolete Space.

An Obsolete Space is being formatted.

A policing Kyuu-chan seals an Obsolete Space.

Japanese Unicultural Modern Arts

2007-05-27T23:41:00.000+08:00

I am considering joining an anime related club when I enter NUS. I am aware that there is already one and they are running manga courses that cost alot or whatever.

Until I ORD, I will be occasionally detailing my vision on how an anime club should really be like in a country that isn't Japan. Whether I end up in one in the end, it doesnt matter. This is a work in progress and comments/feedback are welcome.

Firstly I would like to define a new term to summarises the sub-culture that enjoys what I used to call "Otaku culture". Otaku culture is wrong, as an Otaku is not the same as an appreciator of Japanese Unicultural Modern Arts, or JUMA for short.

Why JUMA:

Japanese - Because this form of art originated from Japan.
Unicultural - Because it is by nature of this artform that it alienates outsiders, while insiders pursue it (almost) fanatically.
Modern - Because the artform is created in the modern post-WWII era.
Arts - Because it is an artform.

When most Singaporeans talk about this unique subculture, they refer to it as anime/manga, or their appreciators as anime watchers and the like. However there are four basic media pertaining to this subculture, therefore it is inaccurate to just refer to it as anime/manga. Therefore an over-arching term is required. JUMA will thus refer to anime, manga, light novels and visual novels. The fact there are so many cross-adaptions between the four forms of media and that anime is not always the end product.

Example: Fate/Stay Night started off as an adult visual novel, but was adapted into an manga first, THEN an anime. Strawberry Panic started off as a bunch of short stories, that were first adapted into a manga. The short stories were then compiled into light novels, then a bunch of PS2 visual novels were produced. The anime started running around the same time the light novels were published. It was only after the anime ended was Strawberry Panic was adapted into a PS2 visual novel.

I would name the club JUMAS, which stands for Japanese Unicultural Modern Arts Society. It would be splitted into 2 further sub-clubs (or whatever) which I will designate JUMAAS (Japanese Unicultural Modern Audio-visual Arts Society) and JUMVAS (Japanese Unicultural Modern Visual Arts Society). JUMAAS will handle all matters pertaining to anime and visual novels (and audio dramas), while JUMVAS will handle manga and light novels.

You may think, split for fuck? Especially if you don't really appreciate JUMA to a deeper degree. The fact is that manga and light novels are better appreciated for artwork and story, while anime and visual novels are better appreciated for their voice acting and music. The difference in the media is quite huge, but outsiders and even people who think they are veteran appreciators of anime/manga are unable to sense the difference (but don't worry, we will show you how).

It is necessary to use technical terms because we have to actually be doing work instead of goofing around.

Also someone who appreciates JUMA might not necessarily be an Otaku, but we welcome Otaku anytime!! To fully understand the term Otaku, it is necessary to read the Seinen mangas Genshiken and Comic Party. To summarise, an appreciator of JUMA need not be an Otaku, but an Otaku is always an appreciator of JUMA.

Anyone can be accepted as a member of JUMAS, even if you have not have prior exposure to this subculture. However, everyone has to go through a certain syllabus before you are accepted as a basic member of JUMAS, no matter how much or what kind of anime or manga you have read before. Only when you have completed your training, will you be reallocated to be a useful member of a section in the society. I am aiming to keep this syllabus as short as possible.

The syllabus is as follows (you will be assesed via short essays not exceeding 400 words or various questionnaires):

- Understand and appreciate to a small extent the basic genres of JUMA which are Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen and Josei.
- Understand and appreciate to a small extent the four basic media in JUMA which are Anime, Manga, Light Novels, and Visual Novels.

To pass the assessment (it isn't going to be too difficult), it is recommended that you follow the module detailed below, although flexibility in substitution of titles and media is allowed with assistance from a member of JUMAS.

To cover anime, manga and Shounen.

Shounen Action/Adventure - Bleach, Naruto, Full Metal Panic!, Full Metal Alchemist

Shounen Harem - Love Hina, Ichigo 100%, Magister Negi Magi, Nagasarete Airantou

You are required to watch at least four episodes of any of the above titles AFTER reading the first volume of the original manga.

Due to over exposure of Shounen anime in Singapore, it is ok to skip doing the above if you are confident that you are able to recognise the characteristics of Shounen Action/Adventure and Shounen Harem.

To cover light novels and Seinen:

Complete reading the first volume of the manga Genshiken (this is compulsory and cannot be substituted).

Complete reading the first volume of the light novel The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.

Watch the first episode of the anime adaption of Genshiken or the second episode of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.

To cover Shoujo:

Complete reading the first volume of any Shoujo manga that is not part of the Mahou Shoujo sub-genre. A list can be obtained from Wikipedia.

Watch the first episode of any Mahou Shoujo anime. A list can be obtained from Wikipedia.

To cover Josei:

Complete reading the first volume of the manga Nodame Cantabile.

Complete watching the first episode of the anime Honey & Clover.

To cover visual novels:

Either

Finish playing one full commercially produced visual novel on any platform (not very possible for new people).

or

Complete playing a demo version of one commercially produced visual novel.

Complete playing one doujin (amateur) visual novel.

Watch the first episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, keeping in mind that it originated from a doujin visual novel.

Demos and doujins can be obtained from www.visualnews.net or www.visual-novels.net

To score during the assessment, statements like "if an anime adaption is good, it would be as enjoyable as enjoying the original media" or "compared to the 3 other forms of media, anime is the most inferior" will definitely work if they are properly argued out with good examples. In fact if you follow the module above properly without rushing through, it shouldn't be difficult to produce a good essay.

Issues with purchasing manga

2007-05-25T11:02:00.000+08:00

Well, I've been buying quite alot of manga and light novels recently. But focusing on manga only, I've sampled quite alot of publishers which include the following:

English: Tokyopop, Viz Media, Del Ray, ChuangYi (CY is the local manga publisher)
Chinese: Chuangyi, Kadokawa

Actually CY's English manga beats all other publishers hands down. It is the most authentic with the manga flaps, paper quality is good enough, translations are not too literal or too deep, just the right balance. It fills the gap between all the American publishers and the Chinese publishers very well. The American publisher that screws up alot of titles is TokyoPop with their imbalanced translations, while the best American publisher so far to me is Del Ray.

You may think I exaggerate by saying CY is the best (their only problem is that they license titles too slowly), but if you appreciate anime/manga to a deeper level, you'll see its the best. One key factor lies with the Chinese manga market. Alot of Singaporeans have the misconception that Chinese manga is more authentic than English manga because the Japanese language employs kanji (han zi). However if u examine the translations deeper, or study abit of Japanese like me, you'll see that Japanese to English is actually more authentic compared to Japanese to Chinese.

Firstly, some basic Japanese. The Japanese character system is divided into 3 sub-systems:

Hiragana - The most basic sub-system of Japanese. Most of the Japanese language is written in Hiragana. Hiragana characters are all very "curly" in nature. Most of the untranslated Japanese characters found in translated manga are in Hiragana.

Katakanna - The sole purpose of this sub-system of characters is for converting western words into Japanese. This means not only English, but even languages like Spanish and Italian. The basic characters have identical syllables as Hiragana. Katakanna characters are more "squarish" than Hiragana.

Kanji - This is identical to chinese Han Zi, or Fan Ti Zi. This is used to substitute Hiragana characters for vocabulary purposes. Kanji is pronounced using basic Hiragana syllables, as opposed to the Chinese system. For example, Kong (1) in Chinese (means sky, or nothing) is pronounced sora in Japanese. And the sora character means only sky in Japanese.

Lets look at a very simple and famous example: Bleach. For the Japanese title, Bleach is written in Katakanna and pronounces something like "Burich", which is like Bleach. The Chinese translation of the title becomes "Shi Sen", which has nothing to do with Bleach at all.

Lets say a Japanese picks up the Japanese edition of Bleach. He or she will find out what Bleach means in English, and appreciate its symbolism with respect to the manga. A Chinese reader will think its all about Death Gods, and appreciate it at a shallower level.

This is why CY's English manga is the most authentic manga around, and even if its paper quality isn't the best, who really cares!? Their manga is quite cheap, and the quality is much better than most Chinese manga.

There are so many titles out there where Japanese translates to English much better than Chinese that you can dig up for yourself. Another example would be Yotsuba!&. The Chinese translation of Yotsuba!& is SO MUCH WORSE than the English one which is simply: Yotsuba!& All the meaning in the & at the end and the general title is lost.

And for me, the point of buying manga is to own the most authentic edition possible. If you buy manga just to read, there are scanlations everywhere. Since I don't understand Japanese, CY's English manga is the best manga u'll ever get. This is why after I realised this, I believe I'm never ever going to buy Chinese manga ever again. The fact is the Japanese generally "look up" to the west, and despise the Chinese with a passion. And also due to the way both languages are structured, you'll never see a Chinese word in Japanese Katakkana.

Well, hope this blogpost opened your eyes to the world of purchasing manga. I hope I don't piss off those who have purchased Chinese manga all their life though...

Full Version of Lucky Star OP is here!!!

2007-05-21T19:21:00.000+08:00

Get it from #nipponsei in irc.rizon.net now!!!

Listen to a stream of it!:

Full untranslated romanised lyrics:

Motteke! Sērā Fuku

Aimai san senchi, sorya punitte koto kai? Cho'!
Rappingu ga seifuku ...daaa furitte kota nai Pu.
Ganbatcha♥ yatchatcha
Son-tokyātchi and release Gyo'
Ase (Fū) ase (Fū) no tanima ni darlin' darlin' freeze!!

Nanka darū nanka derū
aishiterū, are ikko ga chigatte-runrū
Nayaminbō, kōtetsubō
oishinbō, iikagen ni shinasai

Tondetta aitsu no hoteru karadatte
iwayuru futsū no onya-no-ko
Odoroita, atashi dake? Tonkotsu harigane okawari da da da

Bon-bon Ōen-dan
Let' s get! Cherī pai
Ran-ran Kangē-kai
Look up! Sensēshon
Hai! Sonzaikan Ten ten, shō-wakusei
Butsukatte tokemashita bōzen
Ōini utatte shirenjā

Motte ike!
Saigo ni waratchau no wa atashi no hazu
Sērā fuku dakara desu ←Ketsuron
Getsuyōbi nanoni!
Kigen warui no dō suru yo?
Natsu-fuku ga ii no desu ←Kya? wa! ii♥

Sekkin san pikuto suru made-tte chūcho da Yan☆
Ganbatte Harikitte! My darlin' darlin' please!!

Moriaga rī, morisaga rī
koi shitarī, mada naisho ni shitoite rinrī
Amaenbō, yōjinbō
tsūshinbō, chōshi koite gyokusai

Fundetta aitsu ni koyubi itaitte
ōgesa chirāri kuro nīhai
Zettai jan, ryōiki jan? Namaashi tsurupika onedari da da da

Mon-mon Mōsō-den
Let' s go! Baru shinden
Yai-yai Sōran bushi
What's up? Tenputēshon
Oi! Sōshitsukan En en, arubaito
Sagashitara mitsukatte tōzen
Jinsei marutto kenen nāshi

Yatte mina!
Shinki ni neratchau no wa atashi no chōsen
Sērā fuku kigaete mo =Atashi
Shūmatsu wa dō yo?
Chira-mise nante arikitari!
Seifuku wa kantan yo =Rakuchin

Fūsoku san mētoru, dakitsuite gaman da Gyu☆
Mune dokkin, koshi zukkin, I'm suger suger sweet!!

Bon-bon Mon-mon day
Let' s get! Uh uh ah!
Ran-ran Chop chop kick
Look up! Fu fu ho!
Hi! Education!! Love is ABC
Undakadā undakadā unyaunya
Harette horette hirenrā

Motte ike!
Saigo ni waratchau no wa atashi no hazu
Sērā fuku dakara desu ←Ketsuron
Getsuyōbi nanoni!
Kigen warui no dō suru yo?
Natsu-fuku ga ii no desu ←Kya? wa! ii♥

Yappari ne
Saigo ni waratchau no wa atashi no hazu
Sērā fuku dakara desu ←Ketsuron

Aimai san senchi, sore punitte koto kai? Wao!
Rappingu ga seifuku ...yooshi furitte kota nai Po.
Ganbatcha, yatchatcha
An-tokyāppu & jāji de Ha'
Ase ase de suke tara darlin' darlin' amuse!!

STARCRAFT 2 CONFIRMED

2007-05-19T16:12:00.000+08:00

STARCRAFT 2 HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED IN SOUTH KOREA

GG.. LOL. The ghosts are fucking stupid though...

Sample of Hi-Res screenshots (link at the bottom for the rest):

The game models and art look more anime-styled. Heck the SCVs look like Gundams. ANIME WILL RULE THE WORLD ONE DAY XD

The Beta should be available year's end, and it should be released next year in April. This is merely an Alpha version so you shouldn't build your expectations around it.

The event is still running right now in Korea, so any information here will rapidly change.

New units

Terran

Reaper: Uses dual pistols, can jet pack across terrain.

Protoss

Colossus: A large quad-legged vehicle that fires strong dual lasers. Shown in the video destroying a large wave of Zerglings. This unit can also traverse differences in terrain height.
Immortal: When powerfully attacked, activates a shield which reduces damage taken.
Mothership: A powerful flying unit which consumes an extreme amount of resources to produce, but is a unique unit (1 at a time). Has the Timebomb ability, which slows all enemy missile attacks, and the Earth Cracker, a large laser that obliterates anything in its path, in the style of Independence Day. Also has an ability to create a black hole. Looks like a floating sand dollar.
Phoenix: Can overcharge guns for multiple projectile blast, but after blast the ship is rendered inert for a short period.
Warprey: Flying unit that deals damage with a blue laser that does more damage as it focuses on the same target. Good versus buildings, weak against small arms fire.

Zerg

Worm: Unknown

Updated units

Protoss

Zealot: Will have a new charge ability, allowing a zealot unit to quickly close the distance between itself and an enemy unit.

Zerg

Zergling: New ability to mutate into suicidal "bombs", that can roll across the terrain.

New abilities

Protoss Can create shields anywhere, and warp prefabricated units close to any Pylons.
Zealots can charge, getting into melee range quickly.
Zerglings can mutate into a suicidal creature. See the new units section.

www.StarCraft2.com will go live soon

Screenshots!: http://media.pc.ign.com/media/850/850126/imgs_1.html

On time reporting: http://pc.ign.com/articles/788/788627p1.html

Jigoku Shoujo (The Girl from HELL) to take Art Central's 1am slot

2007-05-15T23:24:00.000+08:00

Remember the article in the papers a month ago when PM Lee announced that he supports a Japanese Cultural centre in Singapore? Well.. things are actually HAPPENING. A big time anime movie is going to air in a new local theatre and now this.

Well, its about time they start airing some actual art on Arts Central. The stuff they air now are simply standard Shounen fare (Samurai 7 and Inuyasha). Lets take a look at the general horror anime that is going to scream into a television near you soon.

Plot Summary:

There is a rumour that a certain website is only accessible at midnight. It is said that if you enter the name of the person you truly hate, the Jigoku Shoujo will ascend from the depths of hell to take that person down with her.

There is of course a certain cost involved, but I'll just say this much for now.

Jigoku Shoujo was one of the first anime I watched when I was an Ayu fanboy. Yepz I thought Ayu was the best fansub group on earth, and I even donated 20 US dollars to their cause. If you watch their subs of REC and Rozen Maiden, you'll get a basic idea how high quality their typesetting and encoding is. So I basically picked Jigoku Shoujo up because I would watch anything Ayu subbed. I don't do that now though.

I would rate Jigoku Shoujo a 6/10 overall, with The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi as the bench mark of being 10/10.

Promotional Screenshots for Episode 1:

Jigoku Shoujo originally started out as an anime, and was adapted into a manga. The manga adaption looks disgusting, but since its original anime material expect good direction (skill of the director). Storyline suffers alot though, and although some of the later episodes are thought provoking, I'll just put in a warning for people who are suckers for good plots. There is little (not none) plot advancement and its just something to scare you so you'll have a bad day at work the next day.

Real Life

2007-05-14T20:12:00.000+08:00

Well I'll repeat again. Its not that I don't want to blog about my real-life. Its just that if you ask me for interesting stuff I'd say that:

I'm not implying I'm Mikuru or anything, so don't get pissed off. The entire North High will probably kill me for making such a reference.

As for the not so classified stuff that is interesting, I guess its either too sick, too emotional, or just cannot be understood unless you are a MP working in Gombak Base. Or you won't get all the inside jokes.

Well, I've managed to dig up 2 little tidbits in that grey zone between the classified and the un-classified, so here goes.

ARM ROT:

Well you heard of foot rot, but no one told you about arm rot, did they?

I think I'm the first guy to get arm rot. I have grown so accustomed to my SAF smart NO.4 camouflage uniform that I can wear it everywhere. Its like a second skin. I book-in with it, book-out with it, sleep in it, go everywhere with it in camp. Unless I have to change out to my MP NO.3.

The problem is that SAF smart NO.4 is folded such that it is really thick near your armpits. Now, most of the other MPs change out to slacks to sleep, but I prefer smart NO.4 because I feel it maintains a good balance between warmth and comfort.

Big mistake.

Coz whenever I'm on mounting shift, I typically stay in my smart NO.4 for 24 hours. I think its lack of air or whatever, but now under the thick area where the folded part of the smart NO.4 is it itches. It isn't very bad, but now wearing smart NO.4 isn't as comfortable as before.

I've got foot rot since I finished the 7-days field camp back in basic military training. I was paranoid about scorpions and centipedes, so yeah. Pretty much didn't take off my boots for 7 days. If you don't get foot rot I think its a miracle. Plus it doesn't help now that I have to perform 24-hours duty once every four days.

DOG DUTY:

Dogs may look cute and friendly, but they have many hidden secrets. I'm never getting a dog as a pet when I ORD. Look at Tadakimichi-san from Azumanga Daioh up there that Sakaki the nekophile can't resist petting. Wait till she finds out the godarnawful truth.

Today I was sending teh dog back to MP Command at [classified] time. Yes, for those who are not aware, I'm a trained Guard Dog handler. It has changed me quite abit in a few ways and I'm sure some of my family members have been feeling it.

Ok, so I finished vehicle commander duty of directing the dog van into the front of Dog Wing. I immediately opened the back of the van and chose to release Eric from the cage first. I opened the cage and Eric jumped out with much vigour, which was very normal.

Now Eric is a big, black German shepherd. If you work in MINDEF you'll realise on somedays there is this mad guard dog barking like a maniac at every vehicle that passes into his lane. That dog's name is Eric. One of my favourite dogs actually. I believe he barked at Mr Teo Chee Hean's vehicle before.

I noticed the dog leash had some dog shit on it and I was thinking "Cheebye, the guy who took this leash when drawing dog from MP command fucked up pick this kind of kanna sai leash!" Ok my hand did kenna some shit, so I was kinda pissed already. But I was kinda used to this kinda shit so, juz tahan lar.

Then I looked into the cage where Eric jumped out from.

WHAT the FUCK.

Ok I meant that as an interjection, but that was exactly what I shouted. Even the driver came out to have a look.

By this time, the second handler already dismounted from the vehicle and he just stared at the dog shit in the cage with a look of disbelief and went "WAH LAU EH!!"

There wasn't just a few morsels of it. There were CHUNKS of shit. HUGE CHUNKS. GOD it was AWFUL I tell you. I ended up clearing it up in the end, because the other handler really tio stun and I didn't want to waste time. First time it happened to us.

Now I knew for one thing that Eric was a very disciplined dog that never did his crap anyhow, so the previous duty handlers must not have allocated time for him to exericse. Exercise isn't letting your dog do IPPT, its somewhat a technical term that means allowing him to run around an exercising ground and do his business, and bark around with the other dogs. Fucking cheebye I tell you. Never mind, you all lazy to exercise dog isit? I ALSO LAZY THIS TIME ROUND see wad happen to you guys next time! KNN CCB LJ #@@#$$@#@#$

EAT SHIT LAR!!!! >____<

Cathay Cineplex to screen deeper anime movies in Singapore

2007-05-11T21:10:00.000+08:00

Toki o Kakeru Shōjo (The Girl Who Lept Through Time)

The date for this movie has been tentatively set at either 7th June or 14th June.

Trailer:

"The "Animation of the Year" award went to Toki wo Kakeru Shojo (The Girl Who Lept Through Time). This is the 6th major award that TokiKake has received. Other awards the anime has won include the Mainichi Film Award, Animation Kobe Award, and the Japan Academy Award for Best Animation. In addition to winning "Animation of the Year", the film won 5 other awards, including Best Director and Best Character Design."

I personally felt that Spritied Away sucked, but this one seems to be a "must watch" according to a few reliable anime veterans I know. Toki wo Kakera Shoujo is adapted from a novel, and thus will definitely be much deeper than your pure anime movie.

So... anyone up for a movie outing? :P

Looking ahead

2007-05-09T19:00:00.000+08:00

Well work sucks, and the cash ain't coming in fast enough. To put it simply, life sucks as usual. But lets have a look at the things to come that I will persevere on to experience.

May 16th: Gauken Utopia Manabi Straight! OST 2

After a long and dissapointing wait, I really hope this one has the original Seiou school song sang by Horie Yui. That's the main lure, but I'm bracing myself for disappointment.

So far the 3 soundtracks released have failed me. Damn you MediaWorks. Damn you. The school song was the one thing that really drew me into this series. Before that I thought it was some dumb-school-girls-running-around-doing-stupid-things anime.

For those who are following this series, Miscellaneous has picked off where Eclipse & GG have stalled. Episode 10 was released a week ago, but I only found out today T_T

May 19th: StarCraft 2?

Blizzard Entertainment is unveiling a new game at a game expo in Korea. Just google StarCraft 2 to get the scoop, I'm not that willing to post everything here. Translated scripts from Korean websites indicate that it is StarCraft 2. In fact I would say that it is very likely that we'll get a SC2 announcement.

It can't be World of StarCraft as that would mean direct competition with WOW, which is just plain stupid. It can't be Diablo 3 as the original Diablo team has left Blizzard to set up a company to make Guild Wars. So yea, I think its the real deal this time round.

Here's a screenshot from ages past to whet your appetite:

May 23rd: Bumper crop of anime songs

This is a date to take note of as minglong is going to release a lot of excellent audio tracks from anime. These are the singles I'm taking note of:

Hayate no Gotoku! OP
Heroric Age ED
Kamichama Karin OP+ED
Lucky Star OP (OMG FINALLY)
Nodame Cantabile ED2
sola ED

July: Summer Season anime

If you watch the latest anime, time passes incredibly quickly. This July many excellent series are being released including School Days, MOETAN, Genshiken Season 2 and of course the mystery/horror loli-kill-loli gorefest Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai.

I'll dedicate blogposts to series that I am highly anticipating so stay tuned.

Shounen anime versus Seinen

2007-05-07T22:56:00.000+08:00

After I finished watching The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi, I have slowly developed the view that Seinen anime is superior to Shounen anime. If you've been reading my posts more closely, it is evident that there is some bias towards Seinen anime. I will kind of like provide a full explaination here.

One of the key reasons behind my bias is how I couldn't understand how an anime like Bleach can be so popular in Singapore. When I think of the much greater satisfaction I drew from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi through the links I could establish between physics and religion through my academic training, I kind of concluded its because most anime watchers in Singapore think anime is like a "higher level cartoon" and fail to take it seriously enough.

Before I go further, lets look at the definitions for Seinen and Shounen anime. Shounen anime is anime that most Singaporeans consume and are exposed to, and are a demographic indicator for teenagers in Japan as "Shounen" literally means "teenager". Famous examples of Shounen anime include Bleach, Naruto, Ruonin Kenshin (Samurai X), Slam Dunk, One Piece, Love Hina, and Magister Negi Magi.

Seinen anime has same basic themes/subgenres as Shounen but they are more psychological, satirical, violent, sexual, etc. In other words they are intended for a more mature audience. Seinen anime isn't widely appreciated in Singapore because most require deeper analysis or a mature mind to be enjoyed at an equal level as Shounen. Examples of Seinen anime include Ghost in the Shell, sola, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Lucky Star. Since most Singaporeans are accustomed to the "Shounen flavour", Seinen anime is usually rejected as being too boring, cute or "weird anime", especially when taken at face value.

I have just completed watching episode 4 of Nagasarete Airantou and then immediately after I commenced sola episode 5. For the record, Nagasarete Airantou is a Shounen harem, similar to Love Hina and Magister Negi Magi. Sola is a Seinen Action Fantasy, which I would group together with Rozen Maiden, but since Seinen anime is more complex in nature it is difficult to lump Seinen titles together. Like I can easily lump Bleach, One Piece, Naruto and Full Metal Alchemist together, but for any Seinen anime it is much harder (except for the Seinen Moe genre).

Now I love Nagasarete Airantou. The characters are incredibly engaging, and episode 4 really had me laughing until I cried. My sister and mother came into my room to check out what the hell was going on, coz I was laughing lyk a madman. It was simple harem (one guy stuck with many girls) comedy and I loved it. As I let the voices from the excellent cast of Seiyuus sink in, I was filled with immense satisfaction. Its the "no matter what shit you get at work as long as you can watch anime everything will be fine" kind of feeling that I have been experiencing alot.

Sola episode 5 just finished downloading when I finished Nagasarete Airantou, so I decided to give it a go since I did love Sola anyway. However, I felt somewhat like suffocating after watching first few scenes of the episode. I had to make a painful transition from watching simple Shounen anime to Seinen. Its like in the world of Shounen anime none of the characters could easily die, and suddenly I'm presented with the scene of a boy looking over a huge pool of blood. I wanted to stop watching but heck I went on. I went into my "Seinen mode" about 10 mins later and I enjoyed episode 5 of Sola, but it was very different from Nagasarete Airantou.

After this experience, I kind of understood why Shounen anime is much more popular. It is more easily accessible and isn't shocking or revolutionary. People prefer things to be predictable in general anyway. I believe even though many anime watchers are aware that complex anime is available to appreciate, they would rather just watch the simpler titles instead of making transitions. Its like when the average Singaporean watches an anime to the point where his brain is starting to realise it is infinitely superior to movies or locally produced tv shows, he subconsciously blocks it out.

I hold the view that most Shounen anime is childish. Yes all those damn fighting anime, I believe they are childish. Yes I will declare it now (this is wad a blog is for anyway, putting provocative statements at the bottom or in the middle of a long post and hoping no one will read it). I think Bleach is childish. I think people who love the anime are thinking wrongly (I have not read the manga so I can't comment there). You have "acclimatised" yourself to anime instead of appreciating it at the same level of other popular culture like movies, the way you should truly appreciate anime. You have decided that fighting anime is mature, and that other anime are not. This is because you are trapped into thinking anime is inferior to movies. If you compare anime on the same level as movies and tv shows, sword fights between teenagers are childish. Do you really think anyone would want to watch that kind of shit in the movies? Slice-of-life discussions are mature. Elaborately thought out storylines with a proper plot linking to aspects of our life are mature, instead of a purely a fantasy story. The fact is, alot of anime is far superior to any movie you have ever watched in your life.

Does Bleach make an effort to link to an aspect of our life, or is it stuck in its own miserable world? Do you really still want to be "immersed in a fantasy world?" instead of embracing reality How old are you anyway? Wake up now before its too late.

In a nutshell: Shounen anime isn't inferior to Seinen anime in general, but ALOT of disgustingly popular Shounen anime is inferior to Seinen. Pls watch more anime instead of trapping yourself in the "Shounen Matrix". I especially hate it when someone declares himself a "very experienced anime watcher" and he strings out a long list of fighting anime. Experienced my ass. Has happened too many times in multiple camps already. Anime... isn't.. all.. fucking... sword... fights.... and "becoming stronger". Just STFU damnit.

Through basic respect and racial tolerance that Singapore was taught me, I will "respect" your taste of anime. I will "accept" how many people say the tastes of some are different from others, without providing proper explainations. But I have a blog. And most blogs are used for rants. And rant.. I will.

Lucky Star popularity explosion

2007-05-05T13:38:00.000+08:00

After an uncertain episode 1 release, where many Japanese on the popular discussion boards 2channel, or better known as 2chan, flamed the lack of impact and unfamiliar voice acting from veteran Suzumiya Haruhi Seiyuu Hirano Aya, it seems that Lucky Star has finally sank in with the Japanese population. A big congratulations to Kyoto Animation for yet another blockbuster release.

Lucky Star anime art has exploded all over Akiba in Japan to advertise a wide variety of products including SDcards:

Full blogpost: http://www.akibablog.net/archives/2007/05/rakisuta_pop_070503.html

Lucky Star is into its 4th episode on Jap TV and episode quality has been improving steadily since episode 1. It starts off with a ground-breaking opening sequence, characteristic of Kyoto Animation, and features an addictive slice-of-life experience discussed and acted out by a bunch of cute moe girls.

Just a few weeks ago, the 2channers gathered in Akiba to dance a Hare Hare Yukai, the ending sequence from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. Looks like its Haruhi all over again :)

2channer Hare Hare Yukai performances: http://www.darkmirage.com/2007/04/10/2chers-do-hare-hare-yukai-in-akiba/

Sola OP

2007-05-02T22:09:00.000+08:00

Looks like Seinen anime has eventually beaten Shounen for me this Season. Hayate no Gotoku has not worked out fine for me since episode 4, mainly because I'm not getting the references. Its still good, but not the best. Top 3 anime for the April season for me now are:

1. Lucky Star (Seinen Moe Slice-of-life)
2. Sola (Seinen Action Fantasy)
3. Nagasarete Airantou (Shounen Harem)

Sola OP turns out to be the best this season, even beating Lucky Star's OP. I know Lucky Star OP isn't really a mainstream taste, but thankfully this one is. Guess I'll do a top 5 for what I favour in my iPod nano now:

1. Colourless Wind (Sola OP)
2. Nageki no Mori by Ayane (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni PS2 OP)
3. Montekku! Sailor Fuku ~TV Size~ by Lucky Star Seiyuus (Lucky Star OP)
4. Romanesque by FictionJunction Yuuka (El Cazador ED)
5. Lucky & Happy by Megumi Hayashibara (Gauken Utopia Manabi Straight! ED)

For those wondering how to easily obtain anime songs, I'll provide a brief guide after the YouTube video and lyrics and the bottom of the blogpost, as I realise one of the biggest reasons ppl are not getting into anime songs are because ppl duno where to easily get them XD

If you think about it, if every season there are 37 new anime, it means every 2 or 3 months there are about a 100 (OP and ED plus inserts) new anime songs to keep up with. I don't exactly listen to every one, but its enough to keep me occupied without listening to the stinkin' radio.

Sola
Opening Sequence

Colourless Wind

Vocals by Yuuki Aira
Translation by Lunar Anime

Ame ga shiroku hikari (White and shiny rain)
Mabushiku tondeyuku (Dazzling and flying into the sky,)
Kokoro dake nosete hoshiinoni (Though I just want to let my heart ride on it.)
Tsumetai te wo nobasu (Extending my frigid hands,)
Todokanai shitteru (Though I know I can't reach it.)
Dakedo ima furetai kimi ni (I want to touch you now though.)
Natsukashii kaze ni wa ano koro no sore (The wind brings back the nostalgia,)
Maboroshi ga omoide wo miseta (The mirage brought back my memories.)

Chorus:

Wasurenai (I can't forget it... )
dareka no koe ga setsunaku hibiku (The voice of someone is vibrating painfully,)
Hajimaru yokan ni furuete (Disturbing the commencing presentiment.)

Wasurenai (I want to forget it...)
Negau jibun ga wakaranai (I don't understand my own wish.)
Matteru yurarenagara yume hitotsu wo (As I sway, I wait for this one dream.)

Mini guide:

Primary MP3 website: http://nipponsei.minglong.org/

Download MIRC for Singapore: www.mirc.com

To switch to Rizon:

1. Click on options (The icon with the hammer)
2. Connect > Servers
3. Search for Rizon, then click select button then ok
4. Click connect (icon with 2 arrows upper left hand corner)

After connecting to Rizon, type "/join #nipponsei" or "/j nipponsei"

To request a song from a bot, format is (type this in the channel):

/msg [botname] xdcc send #x

Where x is the filenumber in the xdcc list.

To request a xdcc list, format is:

/msg [botname] xdcc list

Alternatively, you can search the primary website at the top for xdcc lists to specific bots by clicking the packlist link.

Nipponsei bots have a Nipponsei in front, for example Nippon|minglong

Excerpt from a xdcc packlist from Nippon|zongzing:

#992	335x	[128M]	[Nipponsei] SIMOUN Original Soundtrack I.zip
#993	11x	[ 47M]	[Nipponsei] sola OP Single - colorless wind [Yuuki Aira].zip
#994	187x	[ 22M]	[Nipponsei] SoltyRei Character Radio Theme CD Solty x Rose .zip
#995	265x	[ 51M]	[Nipponsei] SoltyRei ED Single - Float Sora no Kanata de [Tomoe Ohmi] (320 kbps).zip
#996	360x	[ 27M]	[Nipponsei] SoltyRei OP Single - clover [meg rock].zip

So for example if u want to download the sola OP Single you should type in the channel:

/msg Nippon|zongzing xdcc send #993

You can also use this method to download anime instead of using bitorrent, which can be up to five times as fast. Fansub channels can be obtained from animesuki.com or forums or any better methods. If you want to download Sola, try #lunaranime

Another channel I was go to is #SGanimebloggers created by the SGanimeblogging community. And it helps to know 90% of English animebloggers are Singaporean. And they watch hardcore stuff, not like the mainstream.

Lucky Star 2 - Hardwork brings a future payoff. Procrastination pays off NOW

2007-04-25T02:13:00.000+08:00

Episode 2 has references to two other anime : Keroro Gunso and The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi. See whether you can spot them (HINT: they are not in this blogpost :P)

Moe Homework 1: Just copy!

Moe Homework 2: By experience, homework isn't important

Moe Homework 3: Massive Multiplayer Online Skiving

Moe Gaming : How Useful?

Lucky Star 1 - Moe girls talking about food FTW

2007-04-23T16:53:00.000+08:00

Air Date: 8th April 2007
Creator (Mangaka): Yoshimizu Kagami
Genre: Seinen Moe Slice-of-Life
Animation Studio: Kyoto Animation
Official Anime Site: http://www.lucky-ch.com/
Adapted from: An on-going 4-volume 4Koma manga serialised in Comtiq, a Japanese computer game magazine. A 4Koma is a 4 panel Japanese comic strip. Initially it was meant as filler space for the magazine, but got so popular that bound tankobons were published.

It seems that every season of anime in Japan there has to be at least one anime that is from the Moe subgenre. Last season it was Manabi Straight! by ufotable, and now we have Lucky Star by KyoAni.

I remembered re-watching Manabi Straight! episode 1 four times, but that's nothing compared to Lucky Star. I have re-watched the 1st episode 5 times and the 2nd episode 7 times even though they are not as good as Manabi Straight! The main difference is that Manabi Straight! is plot-driven while Lucky Star is purely slice-of-life. Once an anime or manga is slice-of-life, the re-watchability level goes up ALOT. That's why some people have watched the anime adaption of Azumanga Daioh, a Seinen NON-moe slice-of-life anime, over a 100 times. Yes some animeblogger shamelessly put the number of times they re-watch anime on their info page.

Ok b4 we get into the food part, lets have a look at the best piece of animation ever produced in 2007. I mean really world record kinda stuff. The first OP that features a fully choreographed dance sequence plus cheerleading sequence.

The above screenshot is a scene from Kanon 2006 not Lucky Star and clearly shows KyoAni's superiority to other animation studios. Looks real life desho? (If u have not watched Kanon 2006 now U MUST. F the story, not that it isn't good but Kanon for me is primarily eye-candy.

Lucky Star OP also has a beautiful scene. Quite obviously to show off their animation budget again. Lolz. Juz a simple comparison.

ON TO THE MEAT AND POTATOES!!!

Moe Foodies 101 : HOW TO EAT A CHOCOLATE CORNET

Moe Foodies 101: WHEN TO EAT THE STRAWBERRY ON THE CAKE

Moe Foodies 101: HOW TO EAT A POPSICLE

Moe Foodies 101: HOW TO EAT AN ICE-CREAM CONE (ERRRR....)

XD

Episode Rating: Well below average frankly. I'd honestly say KyoAni let me down this time, but episode 2 IS alot better than episode 1, and there's a good chance I'm blogging it.

Disclaimer: The blogger does not have a perverted mind. Despite being a soldier and exposed to alot of 'negative' influence, I have not watched any porn or hentai yet, or read Maxim or FHM yet. Cross my heart :)

Lucky Star OP gets a live-action adaption...

2007-04-21T23:50:00.000+08:00

By a fatass Otaku.

Well prepare to laugh, but be prepared to be disgusted as well.

REFRAIN FROM WATCHING BEFORE OR AFTER MEALS OR BEFORE RETIRING FOR THE NIGHT, NO MATTER HOW BAD THE URGE IS.

For the sake of comparison:

BE AFRAID OF KYOTO ANIMATION FANBOYS. BE VERRRYYYY AFRAID.

New April Anime Personnal Rankings (so far)

2007-04-20T23:24:00.000+08:00

I've been slowly watching through my collection of the latest bumper crop of anime. I say bumper crop because this season's anime has been very very impressive to say the least. Last season I seriously only followed 3 series. This season, its easy to follow at least 8. And when I follow a series, it has to give me an orgasmic feeling even after I have not watched it for a long time. I don't 'force' myself to watch anime, and delude myself into thinking a certain series is good because everyone is watching it.

And the reason I say I'm slow is because most of the more avid fans out there have already completed viewing at least 30 different anime series. 9 is really too little and too damn slow, but I take my time when I watch anime. About 2 episodes every 3-4 days estimate.

In this blogpost, I will compile the comments I've made about anime I have watched on multiple forums over the past month. For those of which I have not commented on in forums, I will do here.

I will also update my blog soon with my manga collection. Have been actively buying and destressing in and out of camp with manga. Oh yea, I don't update my anime list unless I'm CONFIRM following the series.

Pre-ranking comment: Its interesting that the top 2 anime for me this season turn out to be Shounen (for boys) anime instead of Seinen (for men) anime. There is this Shoujo (for girls) anime which I find quite impressive and will be covered below.

(Anime are listed from top to bottom as Best to Worst)

Hayate no Gotoku (watched to episode 1):

Shounen Action Comedy that breaks the Fourth wall with a tsundere main supporting character. A must watch for satirical and outrageous humour, I was laughing along most of the time (When a character says "YOU THERE! YES YOU WATCHING THE FREAKING TV!" he/she is breaking the Fourth Wall).

This contains excellent humour and a ton of cross-parodies to other worlds. In fact, it relies on cross-parodies to be excellent. In the the opening sequence of the first episode they made fun of alot of Transformers stuff: Optimus prime, RX-78-2 and tetsujin 28.

Nagasarete Airantou (watched to episode 2):

Nagasarete Airantou is a Shounen Harem and the basic plot is this average guy that gets shipwrecked and ends up on and island that only has girls. Sounds dumb initially, but u shud see what happens when a platoon of girls who have never seen a guy before sees one! Its BLOODY HILARIOUS and actually horrifying at times and a must watch in my book.

For those put off by the complicated title, Nagasarete means 'Cast-away' and Airan is the name of an island while tou means island in Japanese. Its sounds like a downgraded version of the Chinese version 'dao' and I realise most Japanese words are like that. For example school uniform is pronounced 'Xiao Fu' in Chinese and 'Se Fuku' in Japanese.

Forum Comment:

This season's anime has been very good and I'm really watching it too slowly. I think this is the 9th anime I've watched, and yes I loved it! The first Shounen Harem I found excellent!

This is another Horie Yui based Shounen anime, with her playing the main supporting character Suzu and singing both the OP and ED (reminds me alot of the light novel adaption Inukami!). Actually that's enough reason to catch it and I remembered dieing to watch it after reading OMNI's blog, but due to work I forgot about pretty much everything. And it doesnt help the only thing my camp watches is Bleach.

I'm really getting caught up in this Harem, cause I felt my heart sink when Suzu said she didn't want the guy. Oh man, that's the problem with harems, they give u heart aches, and yet you want the pain or something. But if I can survive Kanon 2006 I can survive anything!!!

Additional Comments

- The ED is modeled to show how Nagasarete Airantou will play out as a visual novel, and aimed at making fans go crazy for a game adaption :P

- The anime artwork overall is below average and unrealistic, but the Seiyuus and the plot manages to carry it across. Good overall, but I don't see overwhelming DVD sales for this one.

El Cazador de la Bruja (watched to episode 1):

El Cazador is a Seinen Western Action anime. I can't say too much about it since I've not discussed it at all, but revolves around a female protogonist who is charged with protecting a young girl capable of manipulating matter through the Entropy Theory. This girl, is of course the target of multiple organisations that want to harness her power.

There are tons of pistol fights and combat scenes, and you might think the matter manipulation is unrealistic but its actually not so. For example, the young girl is capable of making the pistol grip of a gun hot and thus causing it the malfunction.

This is overall very good. I mean it beat Lucky Star, and I AM a KyoAni fanboy.

Lucky Star (watched to episode 2):

Lucky Star is a Seinen Moe Slice-of-Life anime about an athletic and smart girl named Izumi Konata (voiced by Hirano Aya) who wastes her talents by spending all of her time watching anime and playing anime-related games. Its a slow-paced anime where her interactions with her friends tend to get them into humourous situations. Since its Seinen, there are scenes that are for mature audiences so beware.

Base discussion thread - http://www.chuangyi.com.sg/board/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1174731356/0#0

Sola (watched to episode 2) -

Sola is the romanisation of the Japanese word Sora, which means sky (kong in Chinese). This is an interesting Seinen anime that has a strong theme of photography going, with the protogonist enjoying taking pictures of the sky and displaying it in his room. A female 'fiend of the night' who looks exactly like a beautiful young girl has never once seen the sky, due to her low tolerance of sunlight. There are a few hunters after her, and she is fascinated by the sky, and thus the main protogonist's hobby. It may seem confusing at first, but gives u that eeriely beautiful feeling that most Seinen anime gives you after you finish watching an episode. Like Futakoi Alternative for example.

Claymore (watched to episode 1) -

http://ckwiz.blogspot.com/2007/04/claymore-1.html

Heroic Age (watched to episode 2) -

Basically a ripoff of StarCraft in anime form, but really interesting actually. Episode 3 is gonna reveal more of the Protoss race. Episodes 1 and 2 have already shown alot of combat between the Terrans and the Zerg. :)

Moonlight Mile (watched to episode 1) -

This is a General anime about 2 mountain climbers that upon reaching the peak of mount everest, sees a satelite. They decide that mountain climbing is boring and that they want to become astrounauts, but however take different paths to achieve their goal. This is one of those overly mature anime that will never give me a top quality orgasmic feeling but definitely worth following.

Kamichama Karin (watched to episode 1) -

Kamichama Karin is a Shoujo Fantasy anime about a girl who has lost her parents, but is able to transform into a goddess from the ring her mother leaves behind. In Japanese, Kamisama means god, and girls like to use the -chan suffix to emphasise cuteness. Hence, Kamichama means something like a cute little god. XD Comments below:

Ok I juz caught the first episode of this Shoujo anime and here are my thoughts on it -

First and foremost, the OP song ROCKED MY SOCKS (insert: Its sang by ALI PROJECT a female duo who did the OP for Rozen Maiden). I need to DL it NOW. I hope minglong hurries up with his ripping ^^

Big praise for animation quality and Seiyuus. I would post some pics, but I'd just say go catch the first episode and you'll get what I mean. Everything is done really really well. Pics are one thing, but I'm not gonna post voice clips..

HOWEVER, Shoujo isn't my cup of tea with its simplistic plots and focus on, well, girl stuff if you get what I mean (cue SHOUJO BUBBLES). For example cool-looking guys and the focus on friendship and love between girls instead of more blatant Shoujo-ai often present between girls in Seinen anime.

BUT this is one series that I should be following, because the anime adaption is done very well. I'll juz have to shrug off the 'girl stuff'. I bet if I was a girl it would blow me off my seat. But I could drop it anytime, because this season there are alot of great anime.

This is probably the first Shoujo anime series I'm following seriously. I tried to watch Cardcaptor Sakura but it was ultimately too boring (survived to episode 5). Making some effort to explore a genre most unknown to me, but not much since it is really quite good

Murder Princess (watched to episode 1) -

Nothing much since I've not discussed it. Adapted from a Seinen Action/Adventure manga. About a princess with 2 minions and they cut alot of things up. Watch for violence I guess.

Idolm@ster XENOGLOSSIA (watched to episode 1) -

Adapted from a arcade simulation game where you raise a Pop Idol with huge Mecha robots mixed in this time. This one let me down big time, especially since everyone was praising it shamlessly. The only redeeming factor is Haruka is really damn cute, and the Seiyuu voicing her is very skilled.

Lucky Star OP is TEH OWNAGE111!!!!

2007-04-13T00:30:00.000+08:00

It didn't impress me that much until a.f.k. released their version with subtitles in it. OMG this is one crazy song. You MUST dl a.f.k's release of Rakisuta to experience it first hand, its amazing. Its so fast that inserting karaoke is impossible.

Lucky Star
Opening Sequence

Motteke! Sailor Fuku (Take it! Sailor Uniform)

Performed by: Izumi Konata, Hiiragi Kagami, Hiiragi Tsukasa, Takara Miyuki
Vocals by: Hirano Aya, Kato Emiri, Fukuhara Kaori, Endo Aya

Pre- OP

Konata: Well lets get crackin'!
Miyuki: Lets-a-go.
Tsukasa: Hunga~
Kagami: Stop messing around and start!

START!

aimai 3 cm (Around 3 cm)
sore PUNI tte koto kai? (looks peachy, doesn't it?)

Chou! (Supah?)

na kyuubunka seifuku (Old-fashioned uniform!)
na furitte koto nai? (Turn-off, ain't it?)

BOON!

ganbacchau? (Just work it?)
yacchacchau? (And do it?)
son tokkya KYACCHI ANDO RIRI-SU-yo (Don't forget to catch and release yo!)

I SAY!
WHOO!
I SAY!
WHOO!

no tanima ni (And throw in a)

DARLING DARLING! PLEASE!!!!!

TITLE SCREEN: RAKI SUTA (LUCKY STAR)

nan kataru (Time for talking!)
nanka deru (Something's coming!)
aishiteru (I love you so!)
are? (Oops!)
ikko ga chigatterun run (I screwed one upsie-up!)
nayaminbo (A nail biter!)
koutetsubo (A steel beater!)
oishinbo (Gourmet eater!)

iikagen ni shinasai! (CUT THAT OUT ALREADY!)

tondetta aitsu mo moteru ka na (Is the new gal popular or what?)
datte iwayuru futsuu no onna no ko (Since I'd call her a normal girl!)
odoroita (Wowzers!)
atashi dake (Only for me?)
tonkotsu (Pork chops!)
harigane (Firm noodles!)
okawari (Fill 'er up again!)

DA-DA-DA-DA-DA!!!!!

Intermission

Tsukasa:Ooh! Guess What?
Miyuki: My glasses! Where are my glasses?
Konata: But I've been playing some fighting games lately.
Miyuki: If I don't have my glasses...

BON! BON!

ouendan (Cheerleaders!)

LETS GET CHERRY PIE!
RAN! RAN!

kangeikai (Welcome party!)

YOU'VE GOT SENSATION!
HIGH!

sonzaikai (Leavin' an impression)
tenten shouwakusei (Scattering asteroids)
butsukatte! (Crash!)
tokemashita (And burned!)
bouzen (Shockers!)
ooi ni utatte (Break into song!)

SING AND DANCE!

motteike (Take it!)
saigo ni waracchau no wa atashi no hazu (I'll still be laughing in the end!)
SER-RA-fuku dakara desu ('Cause it's a sailor uniform)
ketsuron (Q.E.D.)

getsuyoubi na no ni kigen warui no (It's only Monday and I'm already blue.)
dou suru yo? (What to do?)
natsufuku ga ii no desu (I'd rather wear my summer clothes)
kawaii! (Its so cute!)

Seifuku in 3 PI-SU (3-piece uniform!)
sorya matette chuucho da (That's a toughie to pick!)

YAN!

ganbatte (Just work it!)

YEAH!

harikitte (to the limit!)

YEAH!

MY DARLING! DARLING! PLEASE!!!!!!

Manabi Straight STILL owns!

2007-04-11T20:26:00.000+08:00

My Desktop for the past week. Massugu go!!!!!!

Juz watched finish ep 9 of 12, what the hell it was actually better than the first episode. Looks like everything is building up for a fantastic finale. And I've been basically spoilerised since the subbers took so long, there are too many information leaks. Like the latest Manabi Straight! soundtrack for example.

Yes, Manabi Straight! ended donkey years ago, but the subbers have been slow, primarily because they started on April projects before finishing Manabi Straight! I suspected they wud drop it, but hell its too good to drop desho? :)

And I discovered there are other ppl watching Manabi Straight! in my camp, and me and my Coporal who watched it suspect its a sergeant. How I found out of course I'm not saying, but there is hard evidence. :P

Some ppl have been saying Manabi Straight! is childish. Well for your info, Manabi is 16, which means she is much much older than Narutard or Kurosucky Ichigo. It airs at 2am in Japan and some scenes were quite shocking, but very normal compared to Higurashi for example. And it IS Seinen (its serialised in my favourite Seinen magazine Dengenki Daioh), meaning its meant for a male audience 18-30 years of age, but since that term is alien to the average Singaporean I don't use it much in camp.

I know I'm probably part of a huge conspiracy and run a risk of having my brain rewired into thinking 16 year-olds look like girls straight out of kindergarten, but I think its a risk worth taking. Many conspiracy theories are abound, and its probably not good to watch a loli anime with a serious underlying sociological problem. But its hell addictive when you get into it, (un)fortunately.

No matter how much godamn shit I get at work, Manabi Straight! seems to fix everything up very nicely. Its still better than all the April anime so far.. but Hayate the Combat Butler comes in close as a second best ^^

Random Image

2007-04-08T10:36:00.000+08:00

Muahaha. I need to find more of these..

EDIT: After watching the first episodes of 5 Spring Season anime, these are the titles I recommend from the ones that are must watch to not so impressive. This has been a very good season as majority of the anime are incredibly captivating, compared to the previous season of which the only thing I watched pretty much was Kanon, Manabi Straight! and Ghost Hunt. I'll blog sumore if I have the time.

Hayate no Gotoku (Hayate the Combat Butler, TV) - Shounen romance comedy that breaks the Fourth wall with a tsundere main supporting character. A must watch for satirical and outrageous humour, I was laughing along most of the time (When a character says "YOU THERE! YES YOU WATCHING THE FREAKING TV!" he/she is breaking the Fourth Wall).

Claymore (TV) - Refer to blogpost below.

Murder Princess (OVA) - Adapted from a Seinen Action/Adventure manga. About a princess with 2 minions and they cut alot of things up. Watch for violence I guess.

Heroic Age (TV) - Xebec's latest pure anime not adapted from manga or anything without a specific genre. Looks like one of those epic science-fiction anime with several different tribes waring against each other in a bid to explore the galaxy. So far the humans use mecha robots and space ships, and there is a race that closely resembles the Zerg from StarCraft.

Idolm@ster XENOGLOSSIA (TV) - Adapted from a arcade simulation game where you raise a Pop Idol with huge Mecha robots mixed in this time. This one let me down big time, especially since everyone was praising it shamlessly. The only redeeming factor is Haruka is really damn cute, and the Seiyuu voicing her is very skilled.

Lucky Star is airing today at 8pm in Japan!

Claymore 1

2007-04-07T12:54:00.000+08:00

I gotta admit after watching the OP/ED I felt that this was going to be some lame Shounen anime, but the first episode changed my mind. The animation quality is solid, the storyline is captivating and the combat scenes are well animated. The Seiyuus are also more than competent at bringing out the personalities of the characters, especially the Claymore.

As expected from a Shounen anime, the protogonist is a young boy (I know OMNI blogged that the main character is the Claymore, but that isn't true). At first I thought the main character was the female Claymore. In fact, if it was told from the perspective of the female Claymore and they removed the boy this could possibily be a Seinen anime.

I would say the manga is worth a buy if u have not bought horror manga before. But be careful with horror manga, as in animation the horror scenes past quickly but in the comic form it just stares in your face.

Started Airing: April 3rd, 2007
Fansub Group used: Eclipse (past works include Kanon 2006, Pumpkin Scissors, Shakugan no Shana, Manabi Straight!)
Genre: Shounen Horror/Fantasy
Animation Studio: Madhouse Studios
Adapted from: An ongoing 12-volume manga by mangaka Norihiro Yagi with its episodes serialised in Monthly Shounen Jump

Episode Summary: Yomas are demons that can disguise themseleves as humans. In a particular village, 6 lives have been claimed by a suspected Yoma. Thus the village chief hires a Claymore, a half-yoma half-human being to hunt it down. Raki, the protogonist (could be Lucky in English) was banished from the village after it was discovered that his brother is the Yoma (how unlucky). Having completed her job, the Claymore left the village, and Lucky starts his new life in exile.

Claymore is horror with a Shounen plot, which feels alot more mature than standard Shounen fare. So far I would say that its worth following this series, and I was not let down by the pre-season hype.

Combat Scenes:

The Claymore:

April Anime

2007-04-05T20:31:00.000+08:00

This April, there are 37 new anime series being aired and the first episodes of many new series has juz been released by fairly reputable fansub groups. I'll naturally watch anything Seinen, which include Lucky Star, Bokurano and El Cazador de la Bruja. The full list can be found on OMNI's animeblog over here:

http://randomc.animeblogger.net/2007/03/26/spring-2007-preview

Anyway I'd like to highlight some anime that should be worth catching.

RomeoXJuliet

Shakesphere's classic hits anime! It is done by Studio Gonzo, the people behind the first season of Full Metal Panic! and most recently the military WW2 era anime Pumpkin Scissors. The very impressive trailer can be found below.

Claymore

Claymore is a Shounen Fantasy/Horror anime that focuses on medievel technology. The Wikipedia entry is here and the OP/ED is below. I'm dling the first episode right now to see how it goes, but I'm afriad that it will fail since I'm slightly allergic to Shounen anime (the only Shounen anime I love dearly so far is School Rumble).

I'm dling somemore and will blog those that I like. Some titles that have been receiving incredible hype include Idolmaster Xenoglossia, Hayate the Combat Butler (Hayate no Gotoku) and Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS.

Hare Hare Yukai - Eng FANdub

2007-04-01T18:57:00.000+08:00

Omg I can't believe enough females watch The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi for something like this to turn up! I mean it IS a freaking Seinen anime, and no matter how cute Ichigo Mashimaro is, my sister just can't understand the loose humour. Lol female Haruhiists!!!!

For the sake of comparison:

This was produced to honour the May release of the American licensed DVDs for The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (yes those damn Americans put the surname last). Bandai has a viral marketing campaign at ASOSBRIGADE.com and the site constantly changes to reflect time displacing events in the light novels and they have also done some live-action episodes.

HARUHI IS SUPREME. OBEY HER.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri (PS2 Visual Novel) OP

2007-03-27T20:52:00.000+08:00

Credits for the translation of this song go to the blog 'Words of Songs': http://atashi.wordpress.com

The Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri (roughly translates to When The Cicadas Cry : Festival) was released early this year, and as usual some ppl ripped the OP onto youtube. Quite a fantastic find lol.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni started out as a Seinen Horror/Mystery Harem visual novel written for the PC on the Onscripter engine. It was adapted into a 26 episode anime by Studio Deen who adapted the characters into lolis. Or rather, killer-lolis. The second season is now slated for a July release, not April.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is unique in the sense that the story is splitted into 4 question arcs and 4 answer arcs. When a question arc ends, the story resets and any characters killed are "reincarnated" for the next arc. The questions posed in the earlier question arcs can be solved by forming theories from clues provided by subsequent question and answer arcs.

The first season of the anime covers all the question arcs and the first two answer arcs. It is speculated that the 2nd season, which will be named Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai (roughly translated to When the Cicadas Cry : Solution) will be a remake of the later question arcs, and will cover the last two answer arcs.

The PS2 game Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri will contain all first eight of the original arcs, including a final summation arc that is unique to the PS2 version.

Anyway, enjoy the OP.

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri
Opening Sequence

Nageki no Mori (The Forest of Grief)

Performed by Ayanna
Vocals by Ayanna

Fukai nageki no mori (In the deep forest of grief)
Higurashi no naku… (The cicadas cry…)

Sono hi wa totemo hareta hi de tsumetai kaze suikonda
(That day was a very sunny day, but I breathed in a cold wind)
Toki ga biryou, isshun dake hari o tometa
(Time, in just a tiny instant, stopped)

One-way, that cannot return twice.
A lost child looks for a bright place.

Kawari yuku mono to sore o nozomu mono
(People who change and people who desire so)
Tooryanse oide ya
(Let them pass, and you come here)

Dareka ga naita sono koe wa doko? Sotto sotto, nozoite mite goran yo
(Someone cried; where is that sound? Please try peeking quietly, quietly)
Oyasumi yoi ko wa nemure okite iru ko wa tete o otosu zo
(Good night, good children sleep and the awake children project hands)
Aoi tsukikage, ichiboku no? Kono michi de komoriuta o kiitara
(Is the pale moonlight from one tree? If you hear a lullaby on this path)
Matsuri ga hajimari hi wa mata kiete yuku fukai nageki no mori…
(Then the festival will start and the flames will vanish again; in the deep forest of grief,)

Higurashi no naku... (the cicadas cry...)

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya : Eng Dubs

2007-03-26T23:28:00.000+08:00

Firstly, brace yourself for Haruhi's english voice, coz honestly I feel it isn't very good. But then again when you first give voice to someone who can possibly be God, I guess a second time round just wouldn't work. Hirano Aya owns all. But Kyon's voice isn't bad.

Trailer:

ASOS BRIGADE episode 3:

Two words: MORE MIKURU!

ONEGAISHIMASU!!!

Lucky Star (Raki Suta) : Konata Izumi

2007-03-25T08:42:00.000+08:00

Only 14 days to the premiere of the anime adaption of the Seinen slice-of-life 4koma Raki Suta on Jap tv and I've managed to dug up some very juicy morsels of info for the main character, which I shall address affectionately as Kona-chan from now on. She will be voiced by one of my favourite Seiyuus hu voiced Haruhi, Hirano Aya.

She's the one below Suzumiya Haruhi in the pic below and her hobbies include chain watching anime and playing adult visual novels (!!!). In other words, Kona-chan is your typical hardcore female Otaku.

Exerpt from promotional poster:

"Konata Izumi: A typical nerd. She sticks to her own pace, but always finds herself in the middle of various dramatic incidents. She's very athletic but isn't interested in utilising her athletic abilities because she is too busy playing video games and watching anime."

Here are some 4komas I dug up about her:

Anyway, Hirano Aya voicing a female Otaku? I'm sold!

Jap Cultural Centre in Singapore?

2007-03-22T18:40:00.000+08:00

I was flipping through yesterday's Straits Times the papers today after my 3am detail (coz I couldnt sleep) and this caught my eye:

Headline: PM LEE BACKS JAPANESE CULTURAL CENTRE IN SINGAPORE

Quote: "The cultural centre is expected to be used as a base to promote Japanese anime, music and the Japanese language among other things, throughout the region".

I wonder why the article failed to mention manga, the cornerstone of Jap pop culture, as anime actually a secondary form of entertainment due to most anime being adaptions of other media.

Anyway this is definitely good news for me, since I've already given up hope on our own pop culture scene (I listen primarily to anime OP/ED/inserts now). We're forced to listen to Power98 every morning and alot of us believe we can do a much better job than the DJs. And I dont even noe their names now.

DJ1: Do you know what is a Bagel?
DJ2: I'm not sure, what IS a Bagel?
DJ1: Then you should hop on down to McDonalds to try one NOW! They are jam-packed with nutrition, and super tasty!
DJ2: Really? I think I'll get one tommorrow.
DJ1: Did you know last time in France that bagels were consumed by pregnant women only?...

Its pure torture. I need to ORD.

Azumanga Daioh

2007-03-20T01:29:00.000+08:00

Azumanga Daioh is a Seinen school life comedy manga that started out as Yonkomas or 4Komas, which are a 4-paneled Japanese comic strips. This is my first time buying manga that compiles 4Komas and I gotta say its an incredibly funnny and destressing read. Here are some to sample, and yes I do highly recommend watching Azumanga Daioh although I feel the 4Komas are much better than the anime adaption.

In case you didn't notice, it is a movie about cats. Look at the Kanji on the movie brochure ^^

Lucky Star, KyoAni's next piece of work is also adapted from 4Komas and I wish someone would hurry up and license it in English, as it is supposedly one of the best Seinen Slice-of-life 4Koma series out there :)

Lucky Star is confirmed to start airing on the 8th of April. Yes! YES!