"Songstress who is also a Spy" more like it.

November 21, 2009.

Macross Frontier the Movie : Itsuwari no Utahime (The False Songstress) opens in Japan theatres. Of course, it is a big thing. Macross fans are waiting for this moment to see how much the movie has changed from the TV series. Some wants the pairing issue resolved, some wants to see what’s new in the movie, even for non Macross fans, they are going to watch the movie (or not) because the following monday is a PUBLIC HOLIDAY. A perfect menu for dating couples to spend their weekend.

And I went for it today.

I had a very hard time watching this movie because my neck hurts from sitting on the front most row, facing up looking at the big screen for 119 minutes straight, which is the movie’s length. But you can see that everyone is eager to watch the movie. Else I won’t be sitting at the front most row when the rest of the rows are taken.

I was treated to a total of 80 to 90% of new scenes and cuts for the movie. Which essentially changed the story’s direction. It is almost impossible to relate this movie to the old TV series because of the changes it made. But what is guaranteed that the movie actually remained the bone of the concept : One pilot, two songstresses, triangle love story, Vajra, and war. I was never a strong Macross F fan, but I actually prefer the movie version better.

It’s also hard to write how I feel completely about the movie without spoiling it. But thinking of how Shoji Kawamori essentially tried to drive himself away from repeating his direction seen in the TV series. I’d say that he did well for attemping to do something new from an existing material which he already created. In this movie, action scenes are lesser, the developments are focused more on the characters which it took about 65% of it’s movie length so if you’re looking for heavy action scene..well I don’t know, you better not hope much for this.

Many thoughts came to me during the showing of the movie : The pacing of the movie essentially covers what it’s needed for a textbook movie. I find the pacing enjoyable but not to the point of “Wow” and “Splendid!”. And for those who are a fan of Nanase (I don’t know if there is even one…), She did not appear in the movie. Poor Luca got his lines extremely little this time round. The focus of the movie is mostly Sheryl-Alto-Ranka heavy. With Sheryl essentially the spotlight as you can see from the trailers. Quite a few terminology in this movie were given focus : like the origin of the song “Aimo”. Ranka also had her moments in the movie with 5 to 6 new songs even. But since Sheryl is heavily focused, it can be arguable if Ranka actually got her shining moments in this movie or not. But personally the balance of the both characters and their role are actually well done. Sheryl fans would love how mysterious and dazzling Sheryl has became in the movie (She is no longer just a pure songstress with sex appeal with a tablespoon of not-so-positive background); And Ranka fans will also be delighted with the treatment that the director gave her in the movie as well. Brera has his appearance doubled (almost), Grace…does not act like the Grace we knew in the TV series (yet). So essentially we are actually given a movie : A new Macross Frontier never seen before even though we already knew how it went.

Visuals are no doubt absolutely gorgeous and stunning. The mixture between 2D and 3D is well done and worth the eye-candy and quite impactful as a whole. The direction for Sheryl’s live scenes has been changed completely (not all though) and it’s worth the love it deserves. Free from drawing errors, you can say that it is one of the top notched animation quality that is not to be missed ever. Direction is as great as ever and the connection between scene to scene is smooth and I personally see no problems nor I doubt on Kawamori’s skillful direction as always.

Songs in Macross Frontier are the ones that shines the most in the movie. Given it’s Macross where song plays a huge role in the movie, Yoko Kanno has once again proved her skills in her composing. “Universal Bunny”, is a song of rhythm that makes you feel like jumping and dance along with it. “Obelisk” is my personal favourite because of it’s beat (and it heavily reminds me of Northen Cross). Some of the songs are re-used in the movie, but of course there are also new ones that are also memorable. Some songs in the movie are recomposed and remixed too. I also took a whole new liking to “Sou Da Yo”. Though Ranka’s other gag songs (in TV series, you only have “Ninjin loves you yeah”) made me laughed a lot (particularly because it’s funnily disgusting in a way). Which might be the reason for it’s enjoyable ride.

In the end, movie-goers would enjoy the movie that everyone had anticipated around, and Macross Fans will especially love the movie. That’s how it goes. Personally, it’s a 8 out of 10 movie for me. Not a perfect movie, but it is absolutely enjoyable for people who haven’t watch the TV series counterpart or knows nothing about Macross at all, and also for people who already have.

P/S : You will have to come to me personally if you want spoilers…

Some of the booklet scans can be viewed here (Beware, some MAY contain spoilers) :

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That’s all folks. Have fun browsing through!

Subjectively I admit Shaft itself makes, in my honest opinion, best anime openings for anime shows. It can be eccentric, yet creative.

I know, we know, everyone in the world knows. It doesn’t take a genius or much analyzation to make a point about it.

But Bakemonogatari’s “Nadeko Snake” opening was one exceptional case where this entry has to be made to pimp it. It simply has to be there, P-E-R-I-O-D.

Simply because it’s MOE. Despite it has decent, to little, to almost none of relevance to what this show is all about (SHAFT style, Words and Subjective Quotes > Animation most of the time)

However, putting aside this moe comment (hence it cuts short), I couldn’t help but to realize that how good the movement and the animation that the staff has spent making on it. Fluid, natural and convincing – but unfortunately, it also takes quite a lot of animation paper for that (I estimate roughly about above 8 frames at least for Nadeko’s moe movements)

Point? This OP is one of the best among all 4 Bakemonogatari openings shown so far. Mayoi Snail is second (damn that bag movement!)

And conclusion? SHAFT is geniusly awesome. Keep it on, and bring some Maria+Holic style opening too if possible.

P/S : I haven’t watch the show yet, Still waiting for it to finish airing so I can marathon them at one go.

0➈/0➈/200➈

The rest is self explainatory, so Happy BakaCirno Day!

P/S : Screw minute and second for this, you can wait for such moment for all I care, Ba~ka.

Well, that’s what the whole book is – but too early to call it an annual book…I mean it’s not even the end of the year yet!

Pixiv Annual 2009 Official Book : One of the books that I missed during my purchase during Comiket76, but what was strange – Instead of having their booth to sell Pixiv Annual 2009 Official Book, they actually were selling it at Enterbrain booth. Because the publisher of this book IS Enterbrain.

Hence the prediction – Not ALL Pixiv stuffs are Comiket only, and Pixiv Annual 2009 Official Book is one of it.

This book is very very thick : 202 illustrator entries from all around the world (not just Japan, and some of them were from DeviantArt as well), 256 pages and only 2,940yen – this is perhaps one of their thickest book ever released yet (Pixiv Girls Collection was 162 pages). And lovely enough, it contains not just characters – but animals, and scenaries.

It’s okay if you find this repetitive, but if you’re a fan of pretty artworks – and then if you see this available at your bookstores? Buy it. Now I consider every purchase I wanted from Pixiv’s Comiket goods line up to be complete. And I’m waiting for them to churn out more in the future.

Of course this entry won’t be complete without pictures.

Summer Wars – A Movie about “Family VS A.I Hacker” on epic scale.

There are no spoilers in this entry.

Eva 2.0 might not be enough to actually push me to write a full review about the movie, and I thought Eva 2.0 is great enough to go for a run on any sort of award that the movie deserves.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann : Lagann Chapter was a movie I thought surpasses everything I’ve enjoyed in the cinema so far (save for Lord of the Rings series but that’s merely personal, I’m not too much of a movie guy).

But Summer Wars is different. Summer Wars is unexpected – Summer Wars is/was a hit, Summer Wars is a movie where it unexpected thrown at my face with a lot of “seen before” elements yet still come out with a totally satisfying, touching, and enjoyable story to watch. My words might not weigh much, but I can say this : If Pixar has “Up” as their 2009 hit title, then Madhouse definitely has “Summer Wars” to compete with this.

The director of Summer Wars, Mamoru Hosoda (best known as the director of “The Girl that Leapt Through Time”, has a message to the people who watch “Summer Wars” :

“A story about a family that is the descendant of a warrior clan, fights off a world-level crisis that takes place in the world of the Internet (network). No matter how high tech or how modern technology has become, The bond that is “family” is stronger than any existing network. As a work of entertainment, regardless of young or old, male or female, I have taken in mind to make a story that is acceptable and easily taken in by the audiences, an adventure that can be enjoyed even by family, and have always wanted to make a suitable, lively, and refreshing summer movie for the audiences.”

He certainly made it : Summer Wars ranked 7th and grossed almost 127,000,000yen during its opening weekend, and in South Korea, the film debuted in 8th place and earned the equivalent of $369,156 on 118 screens.

Summary
The story takes place in July 2010. Where the world is totally dependant on an epic scale digital world (Possibly an epic multipurpose version of Gaia Online) called OZ, OZ is a large scale social networking site that allows the user to ultilize their online persona and communicate, as well as enjoy their digital lifestyle in the world of Internet – sports, shopping, e-commerce, business, you name it. And the main character of the story, Kenji Koiso, is an introvert, shy and low confident 17 year old high school student who spends time doing part time job in maintaining OZ’s online security system with his friend Sakuma Kei. He is a child prodigy in the field of maths, and has a crush on his senpai Natsuki Shinohara. But one day Natsuki approched the both of them for an unknown 4 day part time job which requires only one person of the two to participate. Kenji won Kei on a rock-paper-scissors battle and managed to get a break off his job as a maintainer, and to join Natsuki on her journey.

But little is known to Kenji about the part time job. And when both of them arrived at Ueda of Nagano Prefecture, everything became clear to him after a series of “huh”s and “wha”s. Kenji’s job is to act as a fiancee to Natsuki who she planned to lie on her grandmother, Sakae Jinnouchi, a 90 year old healthy and kind head of the Jinnouchi family. Much to Kenji’s surprise – he initially was reluctant until Natsuki begged him to stay on and act as it is until the end of  the job, and much to his reluctant actions, he actually enjoyed the night with the big Jinnouchi family that is of close to 30 people, until the night where he suddenly recieved a mail from an unknown person which contains a mathematic puzzle of 2000 numbers and a message.

“Solve me”…

—

Summer Wars may contain many elements that are not really new, but the execution is what it makes it interesting. a story that deals with family drama mixed with adventure elements that requires the combined powers of a family to solve. Summer Wars keeps me interested from the start to the end, and waste no time trying to tell the story in a proper pace. Every part of it is enjoyable, and each character has their respective focus, despite being one anime show of a large cast. It is often very hard to divide focuses on a show where it has about 30 – 40 characters in it. But even so, being a show about family ties, it brings all the characters into one solid group to face and solve a crisis when it’s needed, making the show entirely dependant on each of it’s cast to complete the story. There is no such thing as who gets the most and who gets the less – and with that, the characters are shinny : Shines through the end through the power of bonding.

Character wise, plenty of developments are seen. Kenji can be seen from an introvert, shy and low confident type and develop himself into a man slowly as the movie progresses. Natsuki is a spirited, cheerful young girl who develops a change of heart as the movie progresses. And these can be done and properly developed in mere 114 minutes of the show. Jinnouchi family is large but each and everyone has their different personalities that can be weird, serious, bad, eccentric, but still work themselves together as a big family. Then you have Sakae who, the head of the family, brings them together as one. Sakae is easily my most favourite character. How I wish I have a grandmother like her. (My current grandmother passed away long time ago)

The animation is clean and sleek, but the movement itself deserves it’s worthy praise. Being a combination of 2D and 3D, the whole animation itself is presented in a convincing and eye candy way to keep the audience captivated – especially the last half of it. Even the emulation of Windows 7 (LOL) and Mac (oho, rich family is rich), and the drawing of Dell XPS laptop is enough to proof it to be convincing – After all, this takes place in a real life Japan setting. As an animator in practice myself, I find the actions and the movement of the characters itself to be wonderfully well animated, and nothing “QUALITY” is presented. Though, truth to be told, that cannot really be guaranteed under one watching. Character designs* are quite common, as the fact it’s very befitting the movie that takes place in real life, which doesn’t actually require any fancy or flashy designs saved for their digital personality in OZ world, which I find them to be cute and suitable.

*Character designs are done by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, of Evangelion fame.

Hence personally I’ll buy myself a Blu-Ray version of this movie for collection and viewing purposes. Still it’s a good material to learn.

Soundtrack is kind of above average, it’s not as spectacular nor grand/epic as Gurren Lagann movie or Eva 2.0, but it’s very fitting to the movie, It’s hard to make a definitive review on the music since I actually spent myself more on the visual than music. But I can say that none of it actually, personally disturbs, nor it felt out of mood for me throughout the show. But the main theme of the movie “Bokura no Natsu no Yume” performed by Tatsuro Yamashita is actually memorable and soothing enough to keep me looping the song for days.

The only gripe I have on Summer Wars would be the seiyuu for Kenji (Sakuraba Nanami). While all the casts performed quite well for the show, I still think they should find a better person for Kenji. He sounded a little bit dead and low energy at times. For a person that is easily panic at times, I expected a little bit higher on pitch. Other that that Sakuraba performed an up and down performance on Kenji, while Natsuki is alright, and others are fine too.

Considering all things in, Summer Wars is one of the best movies that I’ve seen as of yet. Personally I’d nominate Summer Wars for a run on any award that it can deserve than Eva 2.0 or TTGL Gurren chapter. But Summer Wars is one you should never pass up for a watch. If you like the recent animated movies like “Up” (which it is not in Japan cinemas yet), then “Summer Wars” is a good movie to watch as a summer blockbuster movie.

That also means, you know what to do when this movie is released on DVD/Blu-Ray…

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Archetype Earth Arcueid, Mecha Hisui + Neco Arc, and Mecha Hisui + Kohaku!?

ECLIPSE STYLE? Boss only style, Continous shielding and high evasion, Reverse Speed, Magic Circuit auto recovery!?

I’m SO getting this game. This is NO JOKE man, NO JOKE. By putting Archetype Earth in means we are most likely going to see the long awaited and rumoured Tsukihime 2 news anytime soon. Though that’s my only personal assumption and wish though…(and I’m not very well versed with the Type Moon universe compared to Ci…)

Now if only Altrouge Brunstead is included…

Source : http://www.akiba-ch.com/?p=1209#more-1209

On Comiket76, they released quite a bunch of stuff on sale :  Pixiv CV Illustrations ~ First Number Pixiv Hatsune Miku Illustrations, Twins in the Number Pixiv Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len Illustrations, Time Go Round Pixiv Megurine Luka Illustrations; Touhou Rougaroku (東方朧画録), Pixiv Boys Collection, Pixiv Girls Collection ~Future to Future, Pixiv Compilation 2009, and much more.

But due to budget, I can only buy as much as 3 sets of Pixiv artbooks, though I do not regret any of it, I was actually hoping that I didn’t spent too much money on other stuff and focus all of my budget on Comiket instead…Too late to think that…but regardless.

Among all the 3 I’ve bought, Touhou Rougaroku is the thickest artbook I’ve ever got from Pixiv booth, with the price of 2,000yen and COMIKET ONLY (or so I heard), this sweet artbook contains artworks of all Touhou characters starting from Touhou 6 to Touhou 12 (up to stage 3 only). It’s extensive, pretty, and lovely. Because Touhou fanarts also took up quite an important place in Pixiv’s heart.

While Pixiv CV Illustrations ~ First Number Pixiv Hatsune Miku Illustrations, Twins in the Number Pixiv Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len Illustrations, Time Go Round Pixiv Megurine Luka Illustrations (long ass name) is divided into three thin artbooks which consists of 3 main Vocaloids : 01 “Hatsune Miku”, 02 “Kagamine Rin & Len”, and 03 “Megurine Luka”. Why Kaito and Meiko isn’t included beats me, but you can ask them if you want. As usual Hatsune Miku’s book is by far the thickest among 3.

Pixiv Girls Collection~Future to Future is by far the cheapest among 3 artbooks that I’ve bought from Pixiv booth. It has quite a lot of unique arts that is actually quite “artistic” and not so “generic”. Definitions can be very subjective, but paying 500yen only for such artbooks that can possibly inspire you to draw not within restrictions, Anyone should obtain at least a copy of it if one is able to. At the very least, this isn’t something you should pass up on.

The only regret of mine would be not be able to obtain Pixiv Illustrations 2009 book. But oh well, can’t help it with the budget restriction…

Below would be pictures on the artbooks and it’s content. So explore it to your heart’s content – But I’m sorry that I am not taking every single page of it though.

Pixiv Girls Collection ~Future to Future~

Touhou Rougaroku (東方朧画録)

Pixiv CV Illustrations ~ First Number Pixiv Hatsune Miku Illustrations, Twins in the Number Pixiv Kagamine Rin and Kagamine Len Illustrations, Time Go Round Pixiv Megurine Luka Illustrations

Megurine Luka

Hatsune Miku

Kagamine Rin and Len

Edit : Apparently, after checking Pixiv’s promotional site on Touhou artbook, it’s actually written as Rougaroku (Chinese reading system) although the kanji is read as “Oboro”, which is actually correct if we follow the Japanese Kunyomi (Japanese kanji reading system). Regardless, the title for the Touhou Pixiv artbook is fixed.

Comiket, Day 3, around 3:05pm

And I got all I wanted from Comiket, flawlessly completed my mission for this Comiket.

This year’s Comiket saw an increase of 10K people compared to the last few years. Estimately 180,000 people attended just on Day 1. And I’m one of it.

Proud? Not really, Satisfying? Not really. But is it one of the best? HELL YES. Personally speaking of course. After running through crowds that broke the heavens, suffered myself from the heat for ongoing 4 hours with barely anything to cover myself from the heat – To get those stuff I wanted is like heading myself for a Touchdown in Amercian Football with a wall preventing me from passing. But still the mission is completed flawlessly…only some not quite.

Came back with sunburnt body and physicially tired body. That’s to be expected. Afterall Comiket is never meant to be fun. It’s war.

Day 1 was rather a relaxing experience. Compared to the last Summer Comiket I had, the weather on Day 1 wasn’t really blazing hot as I expected it to be. Reached the place about almost 10am, it is quite expected that the line will be all the way west of the main entrance (10KM away) because people just keep coming and coming for Comiket. Which are mostly females. (Day 1 is Yaoi Day if you’re wondering)

Sources from 2ch said that there was a real brofist fight at Gonzo booth…really? Must have missed it because I know I’m not going to stay at Commercial Booth anymore longer after seeing the influx of people hording the paths in the hall (especially around the Bushido/Brocolli/K-books area). Plus the smell of sweaty otakus that you can even feel it from miles away doesn’t help. So once I’m done with my purchase, I’m outta here. And that’s what I did.

I love Pixiv’s line. Systematically done and doesn’t let their customers wait for long; Prints enough copies for anyone to buy it (unlike Type Moon dur hur), and no “one item of each merchandise per purchase only” rule means that my friend and I can both own the same stuff at the same time without having to line up again for it. Sadly, Pixiv is just evil – evil for flashing out so many tempting stuff for me to buy.

Good Smile Company line got their queues cleared up super fast because their items of focus all went to Miku plushies AND Reimu Nendroid (and most already sold out), I actually got mixed up with some other company booth (which I didn’t take notice), and lined up there instead of Good Smile line. Thankfully Good Smile already cleared off the queues so I no need to go back and re-line up myself again, so I just ran all the way to the booth and got my Reimu Nendroid, which if I go any later it will be out of stock. Oh god that was dangerous.

Spending the rest walking around the West hall and found some really appealing doujins despite majority of them are yaoi/BL oriented.  But one such prized doujin I got would be “Closet Child Produced #57″ illustration works by Ototsugu Konoe. Hard to show anything about this book, but with luck you might be able to find them online if you know where to find.

Of course Day 1 ended with many pictures and many stuff bought. Am satisfied.

…But one such mistake was NOT camping with the people for Day 2.

Day 2 had a scorching weather. Not even bringing a fan helped because the situation around was blazing hot. But thanks to getting occupied by the thought of must buy Touhou Seireisen I forgot everything about “hot” “heat” and whatsnot.  But the consequences of having such thoughts would be having to suffer massive sunburnt especially on my arms, which I’m still having it now, because I never actually bother to cover myself for protection….

Will this be your fun?

I woke up at 5am, got myself ready with self made food and drinks and all, got out starting 6:30am, took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to Big Sight, and apparently I’m still not EARLY enough to be at the front lines.

Only after Day 2 I realized that people already line up during evening of Day 1. Instant rage there…and here I thought camping the night before rule has been strictly prohibited.

Anyway, rewinding back to Day 2, I had already been lining up since 8:00am in the morning. waited for 2 hours for the queue to start clearing. But apparently too many people have been trying to get past the main entrance to the East Hall. Normally, if without people, you should be able to reach East Hall from main entrance by walking in less than 5 minutes. But, like the picture above. It totally ended up around 45 minutes to 1 hour just to get there. All for the sake of Touhou doujins, and the game itself .

Madness? THIS IS COMIKET!

When I reached ZUN’s booth for Touhou Seireisen, it was already 11:30am but the queue was just plain beyond proportionally long. To give an image of how it’s like. Imagine this scenario (with a diagram) :

* The black box with a white line in between is the escalator.

ZUN’s booth was at East Hall A-28a. Which means his booth was at the East 1 hall. There are 6 East halls, 3 on the left, 3 on the right. East 1 Hall’s entrance was at the right. Since profolic and famous booths usually will station their booths at the very corner of the hall, it is expected that you go all the way outside the hall to find the queue and line up instead. But for ZUN’s case – his booth was at East Hall 1, but the queue outside extends all the way from BELOW East 1 (all the way from the right side escalator)  up to East 6 hall. It is roughly estimated that the distance between East 1 Hall to East 2 Hall is around 50m or so. So, by the queue going up to East 6 Hall it will take around 300 or so (maybe longer). Plus the queues are actually a SNAKE queue, so it means the line can go up from below East 1 to East 6 then snake back all the way to below East 1 again, then only back to East 1. The queues are formed under 2 lines as well so the  people who lined up are in pairs.

The story was that by the time I found ZUN’s booth (The man himself was there as well), I tried to look for the queue that says “last person in line here” sign and intended to line up. But the queue itself is too confusing to look for (don’t forget there are people who line up for other booths as well), I ended up wandering around trying to find the queue to line up but to no avail. After pointlessly wandering around I finally found the position to queue up, only to be halted by the staff because the line is too long and full to the point anymore latecomers will not be able to line up anymore – with the reason told by the staff who is guarding the last queue “Even if you line up all the goods will be sold out as well, so no point trying to line up”. If you think back about it, it’s kind of bullshit as well.

Disappointed, I ended up lingering around the East 1 hall to observe the booth and the people who are lining up filled with excitements and expectations. Along the way I decided that the outside hall was simply too hot to bear, I went inside and did some minor shopping on other booths, bought one nice Touhou doujin, and I was about to actually leave the East Hall with disappointment. But somehow my heart doesn’t felt right doing so, especially after passing by ZUN’s booth and saw that there are still many stocks left, I had this sudden idea of hoping that the staff will let us line up again once the queue is considerably lesser.

Apparently I wasn’t alone in thinking this, the other latecomers as well followed the same method and tried to stalked the last queue and the staff. The staff kept chasing us away, but we just kept stalking. Realizing that this isn’t going to work well, I quit halfway and lingered just outside the East 1 Hall to see the situation instead. That continued all the way up till 12:45pm or so, during the time where the queue is finally cleared and there was still no sign of the staff allowing us to queue up for the game. I almost had the idea of quitting the whole deal and just go take pictures after lunch – yet somehow my heart doesn’t feel right quitting, and I went back to ZUN’s booth again.

Other people did have the right idea as well and gathered up at just outside ZUN’s booth hoping for a chance to actually buy his game, which he actually does have leftovers (which proved that the staff is one big fat liar), I also found out that one of the staff were having talks with ZUN, at the same time getting chased away by the staff for gathering up. Slowly, it went from chased away to regulated instead because the staff kept stressing that “I am not the one who decides the whole deal”, implying that there might still be hope in this. Few minutes later, the staff who talked to ZUN came up to us and announced that there were still stocks left for purchase and ZUN is willing to continue selling, which we ALL cheered and clap hands. Quickly I ran up to the upmost front to get any chance I can take to obtain a copy of the game while at the same time the staff followed up with his announcement saying that 50 person will be selected to buy the game AS LONG AS we behave ourselves (one of them would be no crossing the yellow bar line),  all of us were obidient, and I was the 18th out of the first 50 to get choosen for it.

In the end? I got the game, I actually almost wanted to cry because, seriously, I lined up for about 4 to 5 wonderful hours just to get this one little game and it almost took half of my life for it! Any dedicated otakus will cry for it. I can’t say I’m proud. But more or less I can say that I can understand the feeling of having obtained the things you REALLY want, especially after actually planned for it.

But here’s a good moral lesson folks. “Good things comes to those who wait”.

Happily, I went and proceed with my usual routine : Lunch, take cosplay pictures, and go home.

…

Day 3 was more or less the same as Day 2, but not as hectic. However my only gripe was that lining up for Tony Taka’s doujin was a pain because the queue moved seriously slow. But regardless I still got what I wanted and like usual, Tony always prints enough for purchases.

I was a little disappointed because I expected a doujin of Eva 2.0 from him – Only to found out that it was actually just a compliation of his old stuff with 2 new ones (Asuka from Eva 2.0) slapped with a new illustration cover.

But who cares? Tony was my inspiration for drawing so I bought it anyway.

However, like Day 2, since the weather was seriously blazing hot I couldn’t be bothered trying to walk as much anymore and spent the rest of the day taking more cosplay photos (which is surprisingly much better than Day 1, and slightly better than Day 2…seriously, is it a trend where most S Grade cosplays are always around the last day or something?)

Regardless I still hadsome considerable amount of fun despite the seriously unbearable weather. As I’m typing this entry, my arm feels very “hot” and extremely painful (on the skin). Hopefully this goes down soon.

—

So how’s Comiket?

In a personal point of view, Combining all pros. and cons. – This is by far the most satisfying Comiket I’ve had, yet. I got whatever I wanted without having to rage, sigh, or FFFFFFFFFFF all the way regretting and whining (save for Day 2, that one got me good), and I get to actually enjoy my stuff from time to time. I don’t have that much of money, so whatever I wanted were all planned extensively beforehand. Type Moon was rather disappointing this time round because all their stuff aren’t my cup of tea. Nanoha merchandises never actually appeal me. Real brofist fight at Gonzo booth actually made me relieved that I actually wasn’t there to see it, or else it will be a sight for me to feast on. I never had the interest on dakimakuras or towels with anime girl’s faces slapped on it (to me it’s disgusting having to rub your face with it).

So far, putting aside my numerous rants about hot weather and sunburnt (sorry for that constant whining), I had fun with this hell market.

Until next time, Since Ci will be coming for Comiket 77. I’m definitely looking foward to that since working together to get targetted doujins is actually much better than going through all that alone.

So yeah, until next time…

For pictures, you can view my bought stash, along with the cosplay pictures, here,  here, and here. All 3 Days are included. Password :semantics1314

What is with you all trying to adapt western stuff into anime these days?

First, Halo

Then Ironman (Which is wicked cool I have to admit, I’d watch it if it’s available)

And simultaneously, Wolverine (LOL JAPANESE’D)

I can see it now, people.

Japanese “YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG, THIS IS NOT HOW YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO ADAPT OUR STUFF, THIS IS HOW! YOU! DO! IT!”

Gotta say that no matter how QUALITY’D these stuff would turn out to be, it won’t be as TERRIBLE as this blasphemy…

But when I heard of this 18.2m (what it’s claimed to be, correct me if I’m wrong) Gundam being  built by the Japanese to celebrate it’s 30th anniversary in a LIFESIZED form, that obviously means a trip to Shiokaze Park (located at Odaiba, Tokyo) is guaranteed.

And when I got there, I can understand that since it was a Sunday, there will be a lot of people, yes. But that place is none other than a Gundam version of BON ODORI (if you’re Malaysian you’ll get what I mean) – that means the place will be awfully smokey thanks to the BBQ vendors around the place…and dusty, too.

Back Entrance

How I wish I can actually take a ride on that Gundam, but unfortunately it has no cockpit. Full of nothing but concretes and metal inside it’s structure, but still cool nonetheless. It’s amazing if you actually see through it with your own eyes, get near it, touch it’s structure, which I did : Sturdy and feels like a real thing (now only if we have the real Gundanium Alloy/Lunar Titanium Alloy for this…)  with the well done decals as well.

And what’s pretty amazing was the design. Based by Okawara with the touches done by someone else, but it does feel like Katoki’s design. Which makes the Gundam design itself pleasant to the eyes. I personally liked the design, though holding no beam rifle was a little too bad.

I blame myself for not charging my handphone so the battery died halfway during picture takings, and therefore I’ll be making a second trip of it, soon enough.

Speaking of which, that reminds me – I need to put the MG Exia into my shopping list too.

Gallery

Yep I was being playful. Perspective FTW *snickers*

And I wonder if someone will be crazy enough to initiate a Gundamjack…?

How I wish it’s winter now…

And here ends my second year first semester of my school. Things doesn’t come easy, but I’ve managed to get past all the bad things that came.

…and it was just the beginning.

And with the summer holidays coming I have a lot of materials to write from my absence. And it’s all in the backlog of mine. Considering that I’ll be making my visit to Odaiba tommorow (which makes me the 293103809128039th time to make an entry about a 18 feet tall Gundam which you might call it “OLDDDDDDDDD” – but I don’t aim for being the first of writing entries anyway, remember this blog is all mainly about my fandom experiences I encountered.)

A reminder is always a good thing, so that I won’t forget it. So here’s the list of backlogs.

- Rebuid of Evangelion 2.0 entry
- Yoko Kanno 7/7 Choujiku Tanabata Sonic concert
- Another experience with Director Shoji Kawamori
- Odaiba Gundam’s experience

I don’t know if there is any more, I consider this the list that I wanna clear off as of now.

Still glad that I manage to have fun with things despite having a very hectic, busy schedule. I don’t mind – considering it’s a good experience in a lifetime. And I’ll look foward into writing them all out.

So…K-on ended.

But it seems that to me, and in my opinion : I’ll give that KyoAni has done not much of mistakes nor wrong in their animation. 作画としてはよかったけど. But the way of changing the direction of the series itself puzzles me a bit.

K-on is supposed to be a light fluffy show, the manga makes the direction very clear, but KyoAni’s dramafied K-On a little makes the show a bit haywired. This occured for episode 11 and 12 of it. I’m not too happy about the change of it because I like K-on for it’s mood setting initially. But still it doesn’t overdramatized it so I’m glad on that part.

Still, K-On on it’s entirety remained a very enjoyable show and worth following up to it’s end. the changes they made completely gave me a fresh view of how K-On on it’s other side were done. In a way they followed the original but added/removed parts to make it not a generic 100% followup like most anime did. This is expected of KyoAni considering to what they did to Clannad, which I also highly enjoyed.

I enjoyed the music, I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed the interactions (though it does not beat Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which to me, has the best character relationship and interactions in a show), I enjoyed the animation and studied a lot from the show.

And that’s why I buy their CDs. I’m a fan of K-On! Even so, K-On isn’t perfect. And that’s perfectly fine. <3

Thank you KyoAni for bringing us the show, just STOP dramatizing the show when it’s not needed!

P/S : Michael Jackson passed away/ or at least hospitalized around the same time K-On ended it’s broadcast. Ironic thing is that they both involve music. End of one show = end of a King of Pop’s life. But hopefully Michael Jackson will rest in peace regardless of that useless fact.

700 USD. 700 GOD DAMN USD. And if this falls into DoCoMo’s hands – I’ll turn white and cry for 2 months straight. So hopefully this goes into Softbank. Pretty please, Softbank? Please?

Or aU-KDDI is fine too.

Source : Here and Here

Once upon a time, or not too long ago, there was one anime that people hailed it for “piercing the heavens”. Most of us agreed with it, and it was named “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann”.

When the TV series ended, it enjoyed massive popularity. Many people loved it, and like every other popular shows, comes with some pointless haters who hate the show just because it’s overrated, etc. But they cannot deny that it’s a show that makes your adrenaline pump, though how much is totally subjective. To put it simply, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann enjoyed massive success from it. People loved it, I especially loved it, Gainax is happy.

Then it comes the movie version. Honestly at first, I was skeptical.

Personally, the after feeling of watching TTGL TV series was rather sweet – but perhaps it’s so sweet, my mind formed a very defensive opinion of how the movie version, especially 2 hours of the length trying to cover half of the whole TV series seems to be rather pushing it and will not match up to the TV series counterpart itself. Gurren was on screen last year which at that time I wasn’t at Japan to watch it yet (or I missed it), so I caught myself up by downloading BSS fansub of it.

(And the rest below would be spoilers, onwards – and it’s a long ass entry, read it at your own risk)

Gurren chapter did not disappoint, to say the least.

However, most of us here already know that Gurren is a form of alternate retelling of the TV series with the story flow remained the same from the TV series counterpart. Many of the scenes changed, and some removed. Kamina’s death did not change, and while I do not have objections on how they are trying to retell the story in the length of 2 hours (almost sharp), some of their “rushed gothrough” left a rather unsatisfying taste to my mouth. The introduction to Kittan might be acceptable if it’s rush because episode 4 itself was a filler – but for Rossiu, Gimmy and Darry : I don’t really like how they rushed it off, but I suppose it’s rather understandable. Some of the scenes in the movie followed the manga adaption and I welcome the fresh change of it.

Then Kamina died, I cried manly tears again, only not so much from it’s first.

However, the last part of the battle was somewhat of “Hey, we do not have much time left, so we throw all the remaining 3 Generals into one big finale battle during Simon’s cure from depression and end the show with a bang!” kind. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t terrible, and it was certainly enjoyable (especially the Giga Drill Breaker Dai Gurren Dan Shoot, I had to rewind that part a few times to enjoy it fully) but what’s the complaint?

Not enough.

Perhaps I asked too much, but for some unknown reason I felt odd that they try to mix episode 11 to ep.14 into at most 20 minutes of sequence was rather itchy and I don’t know why I just didn’t get that much kick from the previous enjoyment I had from the TV series itself. Maybe in the end, I just want the movie to go beyond 2 hours, even if it’s just 20 or 30 minutes extra. Now THAT, they can rather expand and divide the story instead of trying to cramp everything and modify it. Hey, 2 1/2 hours of movie is NOT impossible, doesn’t matter whether it’s live action or anime.

But nonetheless, I still enjoyed Gurren-chapter. Yoko’s physical fight with Adianne was well done for one – and I welcome more Yoko’s badass action. And the story itself, even with odd pacing, still retains a good, enjoyable storytelling of Simon’s adventure and his growth – from the coward self to a man of steel, just like how it was in the TV series.

Lastly, I got stunned for a good 5 minutes when they didn’t continue the fight with Lord Genome and had to leave it for Lagann chapter. And I was saying “HELL SUCKS MAN WHAT THE HECK IS THIS”, Only to realize that I was wrong to even think that to begin with.

That is, after I watched Lagann-chapter.

Now Lagann-chapter is AWESOME. (Long story will be long, but that’s as good as telling you how the movie goes anyway)

Basically Lagann is retelling the story with a totally alternate route but maintained the same story structure. It’s almost as if watching both Gurren and Lagann chapter itself can be considered almost totally standalone without having the need to watch the TV series beforehand. If you rated a disappointed marks for Gurren, then your loss for watching the incomplete thing at the first place, unless Lagann-chapter doesn’t satisfy you as well.

They waste no time by startng the battle with Lord Genome and his henchmen – with scene going to and fro, by to by. It didn’t change much until the end of the battle – we got detailed of it’s aftermath. Like what happend after the battle, how they rebuilt the city, advance the civilization, scrap off Gunmens to build a more useful stuff for others to use, how the Grappals are built, how Simon became the leader of the people, how Rossiu spent his time studying and gain knowledge and gain his asshole arrogant attitude (AAA!) from there, how Gimmy and Darry owned Viral and get him arrested to jail (Hey! That was episode 17!), How Dayaka and Kiyoh got married, how the city keeps getting bigger and bigger, and finally the first space satelite got launched (we all know it’s to investigate the moon because Rossiu became worried about Lord Genome’s last words) and the title finally came out after 10 minutes into the show.

Long? Nah, Zone of the Enders 2 will make you jizz in the pants more.

- Episode 17 – 21 -

We have Nia’s new hobby of writting diaries, but however it’s mainly addressed to the special dead person called Kamina and she starts writting about how everyone was doing. And as we all would have guessed, Yoko’s life as Yomako-sensei and her students became almost non-existant at all. It became a filler!

Of course we had the Simon proposal and Nia’s refusal, but one big point about it was that, by the time that happens, Kiyoh already born a child, thus making the “1 million population triggering Human Annihilation program” concept totally moot. So how did Nia became a Anti-spiral messenger?

She changed when Nia accepted Simon’s proposal and just when the two are about to share a kiss, and I tell you – what a coincidence. Poor Simon, he witnessed her change right in front of his eyes.

However, Nia isn’t like her TV series counterpart. Instead of trashtalking humans all the time. She actually summon the Mugans and order them to attack as if she is controlling puppets. Of course, the fight happend, Simon came to save the day, all was well when Simon defeated the Mugans and we thought it would be peace. But as we already know, the others are not happy with the destruction caused to the city. But I certainly did not expect that the riot became more dramatic than it was in the TV series. What a radical change on that. Simon got it worst, but others don’t seem to get any different either, and the the Team Dai Gurren got insulted and critisized by people around – which is new.

Rossiu’s character assasination act was rather brief, and the scene where Rossiu confronted Lord Genome’s head got totally cut-short and modified, of course we get an explaination, by Rossiu himself this time.

Simon’s life in prison was surprisingly changed – We see him get insulted, beaten up, but yet he didn’t fight back (that’s new…) and guess what? Viral came to save his day! Though both got held down after (no they didn’t fight each other this time round). Viral kept questioning his hesistated attitude to fight back – which Simon kept answering that there is no longer anything that he can do, and Rossiu will follow up his will after. But however he created a surprised reaction from Viral when he realized that Simon’s hand was glowing with Spiral power, even without the core drill with him.

Things don’t get any better when Rossiu openly announce the execution of Simon and the evacuation of the people from Kamina City to Arc Gurren. So yay people cheered for Rossiu and people move to Arc Gurren….Not by going through a thousands of Mugan coming up from nowhere suddenly. Team Dai Gurren needs to help the people and the Arc Gurren! And by that they need Simon.

Back in the prison, Simon managed to confront Nia again for another arguement, though this change amuses me a bit, I’m so amused by seeing Viral trying to confront Nia while asking/encourage Simon to stand up (and run, but I forgot the exact dialogue now) while getting beat up by Nia and her sphere energy attack. Don’t worry, he’s immortal, and if he can stand on Adianne’s sadist slap I’m sure Nia’s bitchslap is nothing to him.

Though even so, Yoko came to the rescue in the end and got Simon fired up to save the Arc Gurren. And the rest catch up.

- Episode 22 to 23 –

Battle wise, the first half of the battle remains somehow same with minor adjustments, but things got radically changed after Arc Gurren Lagann is formed. Instead of the moon crashing on to Earth as we know it, the moon automatically crack itself open and a 10x bigger than Arc Gurren Lagann Ganmen attacks, and a new Ganmen is introduced – Cathedral Rasengan, which is actually Cathedral Terra with the possessed Anti Spiral powers (Anti Spiral managed to control it). Arc Gurren Lagann tried to hold Cathedral Rasengan’s punch on Earth but barely. And one little crack scene came up, it’s undescribeable so you better off watch how Lord Genome’s attempt to hack the Cathedral Rasengan’s inner computer system with it’s squeeky voice on your own.

But that’s what trigger’s Arc Gurren Lagann Giga Drill Breaker and it pierces Cathedral Rasengan all the way to the inner computer system. The rest is kind of obvious from there but I’m quite surprised that Simon would actually kill Nia if he is left with no choice – but of course we know he didn’t do it. And Nia finally goes back to normal. In the TV series, Gurren Lagann was the one that turned Cathedral Terra back into normal, but in the movie, it was actually Arc Gurren Lagann instead.

The aftermath was cut surprisingly short. There was no Earth scenes and all of the scenes took place inside Cathedral Terra itself. But we have a long conversation between the Team Dai Gurren with Viral entering the group as well. I kinda like how all of them ended up having a tea drinking ceremony. As if all of them are swore to live and die together as a team. And instead of Rossiu getting punched by Simon. Kinoh slapped him hard instead. So that scene is totally modified. In the end even before the depart to final battle, Cathedral Terra was left in the mecha state than the spaceship state, which is another change from the TV series itself.

- Episode 24 – 26 -

On this part, only Kittan died, the rest survived. As the result, the sequence of the battle is changed drastically.

Instead of fighting larger scale Gunmens first, Cathedral Terra got hit with a tsunami instead and got drowned into the deepest pit. Team Dai Gurren escaped, so Kid, Iraak,  Zorthy, Jorgan, Balinbow, Makken escaped their deaths.

Though what remains unchanged, would be Kittan’s death.

And when Chou Ginga Gurren Lagann got formed, Everyone silently raged, without hesistation, thousands of enemies got swiped in a minute. But the battle got abruptly ended when Anti Spiral (He’s in your galaxy, peeking you fight!) rips off the universe and shows himself, while sending the rest of the Team Dai Gurren into another dimension. I actually went wow when Viral actually showed resistance a little before submitting but Lord Genome and the others got sent over when the TV series was actually different – and because of that, Boota did not change into his human form.

The rest remains the same. But sometimes I actually wonder if it’s better if the casts are killed off, because Kittan look awfully lonely inside there. And here I thought it would be some epic scene of whatchamalit popping up from the box when the dream Simon opened the box, only to found that Kittan sitting there and Kamina had to ask WHO. I swear Gainax, put in some corny music and I’ll sue you for being a mood spoiler…

Some new scenes are inserted during the wake up scene – Zorthy and Kid : Stock market, Jorgan and Balinbow : Nursery house, Makken along with his wife and Lord Genome, Boota with Gimmy, Darry and Dayakka, Iraak with Leeron and Attenborough (this one I’m not sure).

Lastly, Instead of Nia getting tortured with the Anti Spiral costume on, in the movie, she is tortured NAKED. What a perverted Anti Spiral here…

- Last Battle -

Beyond epic. We have TTGL VS Grand Zamboa sure. But the last battle is considerably extended. And we have?

We get to hear Viral calling Nia “Ojou-sama”, which is the ever first and last(?) I got to hear that line.

We get to see EACH AND SINGLE OF THE CAST HAVING TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN VERSION OF THEIR MECHAS. (Yoko – TTGL Space Yoko W Tank, for example)

We get to see Nia’s mecha – Sol Bania (ソルバーニア) in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann form.

We get to see Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Dai Ganzan

We get to see how Grand Zamboa dissected Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann into pieces and BLOOD, BLOOD BLOOD.

We get to see Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which is….okay, to make it easier to understand, Let’s say Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is 200CM tall, TTGL is ONLY 20CM. Get it?

We get to see Super Grand Zamboa

We get to see BOTH Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Super Grand Zamboa uses GIGA DRILL BREAKER. The battlefield no longer took place in universe anymore, but instead, a void.

We get to hear how Anti Spiral sounded MORE human and aggresively hotblooded in it’s evil way. Though I don’t even know what I’m talking about with this.

We get to see both Yoko and Nia naked. Fanservice! There goes your chance in hoping TTGL movie makes it’s way to Malaysia (tee hee)

We get to see a FIST FIGHT between Simon and Anti Spiral. Hand to hand, and blood splatters. Of course, the end? Simon’s hand turned into a drill and he performed a human Giga Drill Breaker on Anti Spiral. Epic.

The rest? Wait till you get to watch it.

- Epilogue -

Nia’s death is not changed, so? Cry. What else?

At least she managed to leave a DIARY, that’s something.

At the epilogue, we are shown Simon wearing Nia’s ring as a necklace. And work as a driller that benefits the people around him (he is shown drilling a somewhat burried fountain and brought the village water, which the villagers are happy for it).

The rest is rather obvious, but we don’t get to see Rossiu and Yoko anymore like what we saw in the TV series.

So how was it?

I was awed.

So awed

There were claps from the audience, there were sobbing sounds from the audience (especially when Kittan died), and me? I was left totally awed by watching my favourite show in a retelling form on a BIG screen and fantastic surround sound. My legs went shivering for a long 10 minutes and my heart kept beating fast (bad, this is bad, adrenaline rush is bad). And thank god it wore down. But for a movie that made me have these kind of experience – I have two conclusions to make

Either they overdid it, or it was totally myself that made such a big fuss out of self that I got those “side effects” in the end. But nonetheless, I enjoyed the movie oh so much that I do not mind paying another 1,500yen just to watch it again. So in conclusion, it’s just THAT worth it. Guess I understand why some 2-chan people would go watch it again and again. They just couldn’t get enough, period.

In the end, Gainax made another successful masterpiece again that will definitely put Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as one of their masterpiece work. It will stay so for a period, and I don’t think it’ll end easily.

And thanks to that, I got myself a long ass entry. If you read it up to here, Thank you for having such wonderful patience. お疲れ様！

If there are any songs worth listening on live, and will completely make you listen it up to the end…

THIS will be the one.

Mezame no Hakobune – Hyakkin (めざめの方舟 – 百禽)

Makes you wonder what will happen if you manage to get the DVD, hook it up with a Home Theatre system, sit back and enjoy?

Read more about Mezame no Hakobune here

I don’t dare on any comments saying that this is better than God Knows. But it has it’s own merit, despite how many people thinks K-On! is overrated piece of rubbish show. I, however enjoy it a lot.

And this song, owns me much (lol @ Yui’s croaked vocals for the song), that it deserves it’s own entry. Just hope that they will fix that on the single release on this song (you know they WILL).

The rest…

Aww don’t worry, if no one will, I will. <3

P/S : If the PV above looks familar to you, then you’re probably reminded of this :

No, they aren’t the same at all, but consider it a parody, if you like.

See the price for yourself

Considering that Mio’s headphone is NOT meant for a normal consumer to use, I have to wonder where or how did Mio get her 77,000 yen to buy this?

Of course, Mio’s headphone is never meant for outdoor use, hence why the only time you would see her using the headphone will only be when she is either studying, or like this :

PORTABLE CD PLAYER IS STILL ON DEMAND OKAY? Don’t get 100% spoilt by mp3  format of yours. There is a reason why we still buy music CDs (because it’s NEAR lossless) these days.

Makes me wonder what KyoAni is trying to accomplish by putting in all the expensive stuff into the show?

And yes, if you’re wondering, I’m 100% aware that most of the people already know this by now.

—

P/S : Adobe, stop sucking already, seriously. What is with you and your error 1603 that I cannot even reinstall back my Photoshop into the laptop? STOP MAKING YOUR PRODUCTS SO GOD DAMN COMPLICATED DAMN IT.

P.P/S : I still had a hard time believing that Mio’s headphone would cost 77K yen, so I chose not to believe so! Denial for the win.

Pixiv can be sometimes, amusing.

We all know Doraemon, for manga or anime, is considered one anime where most of us grow up with. It became a memory for those who grew out of it, and a neverending journey for those who follow the series up till today. But still, when you hand on the series to the people who thinks the root of the series itself can be modified to a next level. You’ll get these kind of results in the end.

Note : These are taken from Pixiv. I do not claim any copyright for these pictures. All works belong to their respective owners.

Oh, I don’t responsible for your brain breaking, either!

Some of them are normal and acceptable, but some of them are just plain…you make your decision. But nonetheless, still they have their own perception and version of how Doraemon (should) look(s) like. What about yours then?

“あなただけのために咲く花” by tearfish. Do not claim his/her works as your own.

If we want to define Pixiv – It’s DeviantArt, for the Japanese. And usually it’s a good place for otaku to stalk fanarts, and even some professional known artists (Aoi Nishimata comes into mind) posts their stuff there.

Pixiv was launched at September 10, 2007, and now it has more than 700,000  registered members and also organized many events and random interesting topics to keep the artists motivated in their drawing. In many ways, personally Pixiv has a better system and user feedbacks for the artists are strong – but perhaps not universally friendly because Pixiv is majority an art community site for the Japanese. However, that doesn’t stop foreigners from registering for it : I don’t know, maybe some would go for the R-18 (adult section), some would go for their fandoms, some yaoi, some yuri…in all, it’s a heaven for anime art collectors.

And when I see THIS book…

There is only one choice left for me : BUY

You can pretty much leave any other of your purchases aside. Especially if you’re one art lover, you cannot pass this up.

163 pages in total, this book contains various illustrations from the artists around Pixiv that the staff deemed beautiful, astonishing, and impactful (subjectively) enough to warrant a compilation. They even made a disclaimer, seen on the contents page that the posted illustrations being modified to fit the standard of publishing and even recommend us to compare the printed to the projected (in other words, the original art itself on Pixiv) if possible.

Depending on how you want to define worthy, this art collection includes various, different types of category for browsing : Illustrations of Original, Shoujo, Creation, Meganekko (glasses girl), Uniform girls, Maids, China girl, Science fiction, Fantasy, Fairy, Nekomimi (Cat Girls), Mizugi (swimsuits), Mecha-musume (mechanical girls), to Concept arts like Pixiv Fantasia – an inside event that uses various fantasy, created country as a theme to create an expressive illustration; Vocaloid (which is quite obvious by now), and Oekaki Musume (Drawing Girls). The selections itself are drool worthy. You can practically enjoy and at the same time be awed at how some artists can be so creative in their expression while at the same time, skillful enough to present their creativity for the masses. For artists, it is also one of an encouragement.

For 2,000yen, this book is absolutely worth your money in anyway shape and form. Instead of trying to find someone to rip this book off for scanning, it is absolutely recommended that you actually buy the book itself. Support the artists, encourage them to keep continue producing arts of wonder – it doesn’t come easy, so don’t take the shortcut and be fair to them, too. I’m not going to rip it off – Because I love the artists who spend time producing it, so 2,000yen is just a small support that I can do for them.

I don’t know about you – but I’m all for Pixiv. What about you?

Previews are all taken from Himeyashop.com, Because I apparently failed at taking good pictures of the contents, so please cut me some slack for that, eh?

So…hallo, I’m back.

Where have I been? Well, taking my time resting, having tea, and…catching up some anime for the past 3 months. It doesn’t come easy. Initially I actually had this sort of writing dilemma that I do not know what am I suppose to write anymore. Nothing really caused it, it’s just once in a while sort of thing. Considering that now that I’m back into the spirit of blogging again. You can expect more things in the future.

…Maybe less, biased entries about episode summaries (I’m looking at my Gundam 00 entries here!).

Previously I was back at Malaysia having my lovely outing time with friends and families. Unlike most otakus around, I actually have a life. But now since I’m back in Japan – the loneliness kicks back again to it’s full gear. So writing and drawing is the only thing I can do to keep myself occupied from this boring lifestyle.

Coming up next (hopefully) would be more on anime stuff and seiyuu stuff. And this time, hopefully, it lasts for a while before I’m calling for another rest.

But what happend when you said you want to make a dual language for this blog?
That I’m still thinking what to do about it…eheh.

So, Tadaima.