"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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Belated post, I know. Because I’ve been looping this opening for quite a while before actually making this entry.

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.

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.

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Or any other studios in Japan, I would like to ask you a question.

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…

Azu-nyan is a lovely girl, after Mio that is.

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.

出たああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ――――――――――――――!!!!!

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)

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やばい、やばすぎ…シングル買う決定だなこれはｗｗｗ….

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…

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The price however…is not.

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!

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Usually, at Nico Nico Douga, there will be people with a talent or two recording their own performance on anisongs (Anime songs). Usually with tripods or without, or whatever methods they used to, these people tend to make people awed with their skills – Comeon, would you actually record horrible performance and actually show it to people? (well they might be a few, but that’s only for thick skin people. For people who perform, they usually perform their arrangements using piano, or violin, or guitar, or any other instruments available.

But this one individual might be different. Do no Hito, a talented pianist that actually plays his arrangement close enough to the original (though with mini mistakes that’s usually minor, don’t mind) yet his playstyle is very simple. He moves his hands fast, yet it doesn’t involve much finger moving (especially on the left hand, right hand is however another story).　In other words, he is damn good at piano arranging and manage to stay true to the original song most of the time. He might not be special, but he is worth mentioning. Though his play style is simple, it’s by no means easy to mimic nor easy to interpret, as thinking such will bring you fatal mistake. UNLESS you’re one such professional.

ESPECIALLY on how he perform on Seikan Hikou (a song from Macross Frontier, English name “Interstellar Flight”)

*Kira!*☆ with NO LAG, Amazing.

More of the songs he played can be found here

You have to admit, he is one helluva pianist. IF you have a Nico account. It’s worth giving a listen to his songs. Every of his videos are praised, but we all know that comments are definitely mixed with the range from positive to negative.

Looking at his playing makes me wanna relearn piano. But unfortunately, I will not have such opportunity until I go back to Malaysia.

All the setup for the big thingy coming later on

BELOW IS SPOILERS (Unfortunately it won’t be a long ass post)
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I mean, comeon… really.

SPOILERS BELOW

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Delicious Anew is delicious, but I’m STILL DOUBTFUL of this girl…

BELOW IS SPOILERS

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They’re back!

…But not without flaws. Unlike the Sankaku’s entry about  Minami-ke : Okaeri here – I personally do not think of it as a complete disaster. But certainly it does need to push the direction further to the positive side rather than to keep it up and attract more rage and eyesores. I noticed a lot, and it’s certainly not putting the franchise into a good light. Considering Minami-ke : Okawari was, in my opinion, actually great (animation wise).

The production house needs to keep up the spirit from where it left from the first season. The humour is still there, the slice of life is still there, the lovely interactions are still there. Just the animation error needs to stop, and we will have a good series to follow for this season.

And Hosaka is back…with more “気もち悪い” (kimochi warui) as usual. A narcistic stripper is what this series needs for the humour after all!

Yes, for all of those who followed, he made a small rant about how his doujin works are getting strayed out of his original intention where people might know Touhou through spinoff doujins and, in this case, the upcoming anime from Maikaze; Not from his games.

But however, has he ever thought of the fact that with this superbly well done Touhou doujin anime here :

Part I

Part II

…might actually gave people around, who has no knowledge about the anime here, a big insight of how Touhou is ironically, done accordingly to what ZUN had done to his games in the past, and as well to actually trigger people to put attention to his games and more importantly, his creations? If I am ignorant of Touhou’s existence up till now : I would have look through Wiki, and try my hands on the game (using whatever method available), and get hooked with ZUN’s wonderfully created works of art here? In a way I’m not ignoring the existence of the his games. He just needs to be less selfish. People have their various ways of knowing works through any medias, it doesn’t have to be solely from his games.

However, I have my utmost respect for ZUN-sama for creating such a wonderful masterpiece. I just hope that he would just acknowledge the existence of the anime and eventually, since Touhou has grown so big that, sooner or later it will have to go commercial, he can’t control it forever. In a way, this is like how Type-Moon gone commercial. And they are smart.  God knows Kinoko Nasu might be sitting on his chair shaking legs counting money right now, enjoying his success and popularity?

It’s just a sooner or later thing now.

P/S : Maikaze, My very utmost respect for you. THIS CANNOT BE DOUJIN ANIME. GOOD LORD, HOW CAN THIS THING BE AN AMATEUR PIECE OF WORK?
P.P/S : Comiket 75 left both of my legs crippled. My legs died, but I enjoyed this much more than C74. Reports coming up soon.

This episode is absolute intense to the max. However, not much of explaination is really necessary.

SPOILERS BELOW
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I can’t believe what I’ve just watched…

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I somehow am not too pleased watching this episode, not complaining it’s BAD though…

SPOILERS BELOW

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So, Ep.11 is an upgrade episode…

SPOILERS BELOW

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