Sunday, May 7, 2006

I am so damn tired right now. My weekend total:

Panels: 5 (Shounen Ai, Food of Japan, Naruto Fan Discussion, Gothic & Lolita, Ball-Jointed Dolls. The best panel was the Gothic & Lolita, but my favorite was the Naruto discussion. The panelists were really awesome. My favorite bits:

Q: When do you think the fillers will finally end?
A: When Shino laughs. Oh, wait.

"Shino gets a hoodie for his new look, but poor Chouji looks like a fat samurai reject from Champloo."

Q: What do you think will happen in the next few manga chapters?
A: We'll see Sasuke beat the hell out of Sai! Though, Sai must be pretty strong, since they wouldn't send some weak pansy to fight him. Even though Sasuke is a whiny little wussy.
Me: *yells out* Which is why we LOVE HIM!)

Money Spent on Merchandise: $60 (Considering that only $15 of it was my own money, I feel a little guilty for ripping off my friends. My money-leeching skills are to be feared. Though, at least I used the money to buy a really cute Death Note handbag and a very pretty steel Kino no Tabi keychain with a picture of Kino and her motorrad engraved on it. With my $15 I bought a cross-shaped Death Note keychain.)

Number of Hours Spent Wandering Around the Exhibit Hall: 5-6

Number of Cloud Cosplayers: 10 million

Number of L cosplayers: 1

Number of BJD Spottings: At least a dozen (There were a LOT of dolls over the Artist Alley. The most memorable encounter was with a dollfie owner who was planning on selling one of her dollfies if she couldn't raise enough money within the next hour. (I gave a one dollar donation, since I only had less than two dollars left at the time.) When I checked up on her a couple hours later, she said she had enough money to keep the doll.)

Number of Times I Totally Fangirled Over Something: 6 (The biggest one was during the Masquerade. There was a Devil May Cry skit! It involved Lady mistaking Vash from Trigun for Dante, and Vergil arguing otherwise, since "he thinks he'd know what his own twin brother looks like." Then, Vincent Valentine popped out of nowhere, Vash made a comment on how posing as Dante gets him hot chicks (a.k.a. Lady), which prompted this awesome bit of dialogue:

Vincent: *looks at Lady* Hi, I'm Dante.
Vergil: *points offstage* Look! There's Sephiroth! Go get him! Go!
Vincent: *runs off*

Afterwards, Vergil made a comment on how the real Dante wouldn't button up his coat, so Vash ripped his coat open, which elicited many loud, fangirlish squeals from the females of the audience. I don't know about anyone else, but for me at least, that skit was all sorts of win.

I also screamed out something to a Sasuke and a Roxas cosplayer who came onstage, haha.)

Number of Times I Laughed During the Con: Too many to count (At the con today, my friends spotted one really hot cosplayer looking through tankouban, so I snuck up beside him and pretended to flip through the merchandise in front of me, while sneaking glances from the corner of my eyes. Then, I realized the merchandise I was supposedly looking at was hentai. So, my friends were just like, "....What are you doing?" And I laughed like a moron.)

Something else I think I should mention: I finally watched Advent Children today during a special screening at the con, and OMG. So much Cloud love! And Reno and Vincent love, while I'm at it. It's nice to see that Cloud still has his moments of mako-induced insanity, because Cloud is at his best when he's half-crazed. (I'm one of those oddball Cloud fans.)

And because of various problems, I wasn't able to meet Katana. :(

More in the upcoming con report!
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Friday, May 5, 2006

will you be my own, my Everglow, that shines like stolen bits of glitter?
Just got back from ACen, and man, am I tired.

My friend and I arrived around 4:30, and from there, we immediately zipped over to the Shounen Ai panel. (More on that in the soon-to-be-written con report.)

Then, we went to the Exhibition Hall/Dealer's Room, and I spent an hour looking for an L pin. (To no avail! I'm saddened by the utter lack of L merchandise.) Though, at the very least, there's a huge rise in general DN merchandise. (As well as Loveless and Nana, in fact.)

Afterwards, the two of us got terribly hungry, and munched on my homemade sushi while sitting in on the Food of Japan panel. (How ironic. As a note, the panel itself was very, very informative and well-done.)

Then, we went to the video game room, though we spent most of the time talking instead of playing, and spent the last couple hours at the con watching episodes of Eureka Seven.

And there's still two more days of fun left. :)

(A note to Katana: I'll be wearing a cherry blossom pink shirt.)
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Tuesday, May 2, 2006

almond crush pocky smells like Starbucks. for serious.

Pre-ACen Chaos

S: I'm organizing a raid.
Me: What?
S: A raid. Thursday. After school. Hyatt Regency. We'll storm the registration desk and get our badges.
Me: You do know that only one of us needs to go?
S: Oh. You'll have to talk to the others about that, then.

-later-

C: So, are we all going on Thursday?
Me: Only one of us needs to go.
C: But we have to e-mail them by today. Who's going for us?
Me: ...I think Sean can go that day.
C: Yeah, let's make Sean get our badges!

-later-

N: I guess we're all gonna have to pick up the badges on our own.
Broken Record Me: Only one of us needs to go.
N: But I don't know who'll be able to go on Thursday.
Me: ...I think Sean can go that day.
N: Okay, we'll make Sean go! *e-mails registration staff*

-even later-

Me: We decided that you'll be the one to get our badges.
S: Is anyone else coming with me?
Me: ......I have homework to do. But you can give me my badge during Chem class on Friday, okay? :D
S: Yeah, thanks. -_-

Friendship at its finest.
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Sunday, April 30, 2006

Long KH2-Centric Post; Small Spoilers
Something I've neglected to mention for some time; my friend finished KH2 a couple weeks back and lent me the game.

A few friends of mine advised me not to over-level Sora, as they easily rushed through the game because of it. (And I honestly prefer the difficulty, anyway.) So, I skipped most of Agrabah, which was kind of dull anyway, and went onto the higher leveled worlds. (Funny thing is I never had to make it up; as long as you complete Halloween Town, you can skip Agrabah and the Pride Lands altogether.)

I just finished my third or fourth visit to Hollow Bastion (to those who played the game, it's when there's that massive Heartless/Nobody invasion), and I'm very pleased to say that it's by far the best level in the game so far.

At the start, Sora was 6 levels below the world's battle level (Battle Lvl: 34, Sora: 28), so the first couple battles were VERY challenging for me, particularly Demyx. That bastard beat me around 9 times. I got his attack pattern down relatively quick, but he attacked too quickly for me to heal, even when using the shortcut commands. I'll admit that the fight itself was loads of fun, though the stupid timed clone sequences really pissed me off, especially since they were the cause of about a third of my losses.

Immediately following that battle was a series of Donald-and-Goofyless fights. In each fight, however, one Final Fantasy character (first Yuffie, then Squall, Tifa, and Cloud) would come to your aid, making the fights much easier than they would be even with Donald and Goofy around. As noted above, Cloud appeared during the last fight, and holy crap, HE FOUGHT LIKE A MADMAN. I honestly think Sora could've just stood in the corner the whole time and I still would have won. If only I could permanently trade Donald and Goofy for him, seriously.

A couple cutscenes and a save point later was the final 1000 Heartless battle, which was much easier than it sounds thanks to the special Triangle commands. Though, I kind of wish the fight was more chaotic; it felt more like the Heartless were waiting in line to be destroyed rather than one big free-for-all, though I suppose that's just the DMC fangirl in me talking.

The cutscenes were just as interesting as the fights. First off, Sephiroth appeared, and he messed with Cloud's mind for a while. (Yay!) Also, Squall and Cloud are BEST FRIENDS now. FF fanservice stuff aside, I can now firmly say that the story is much better presented this time around, what with the final boss actually involving himself in the plot. (IMO, he's way cooler than "Ansem" ever was.) And Axel continues to rock my socks off. :)

I'm currently re-visiting Mulan's world (known to some as "China") three levels below the assigned Battle Level, and fighting against another of Organization XIII's members. I'll probably post on this again once I'm finished with the game. :)

EDIT: Changed the music.
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Friday, April 28, 2006

A week left 'til ACen. About 20 other classmates of mine are coming along to the con (a mob of Asians!). Like last year, most of them are probably going to hang around the Exhibition Hall all day, but since I'm bringing no money with me this year, I'll probably just go panel-hopping on my lonesome.

Note to Katana: Sorry that we haven't decided on a meeting place & time, but I can't until the programming schedule is released on the website. :(

Con stuff aside, I finally have Mushishi! It's only episodes 1-5 so far, but my friend promised to bring the rest next week.

(This has nothing to do with anime, but I think it's amusing.) We're writing play scripts in American Lit. class, and from the ones I've read and seen performed, half of them are emo. Filled with junkies, alcoholics, abusive parents, and suicidal teens. Oh, to be in high school.

Now, for the cutest L icon you'll ever see:


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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

no time to think of a fancy post title--there's a trailer to watch!
NEW DEATH NOTE MOVIE TRAILER! Copying the PM I just sent:

"There's an AWESOME new DN movie trailer. You can see it at the main site:
www.death-note-movie.com (Don't click the trailer link on the splash page--go to Light's bedroom via the floating Death Note, click on the TV, then press the red button on the remote first, then another button below it.) There's a shot of Ryuk at the very end, and he actually looks pretty good."

I'm eating Egg Foo Young, re-watching the trailer, and I haven't done a lick of homework. I'm somehow very pleased with myself right now.

EDIT: Screencap of Ryuk in the trailer:



*loves on it*
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Sunday, April 23, 2006

wasurekaketeta. tooi. yume no. otozure.
While writing the Pop Culture article, I found some very interesting things on YouTube, among them were:

- West Side Story... IN JAPANESE!
- Ridiculously bad Japanese voice acting.
- That the protagonist of live-action Honey and Clover will be played by a member of the boy band ARASHI. (Not MatsuJun, though. :( )
- A few SMAPxSMAP skits, which are the craziest things. They even did the Numa Numa dance!
- Various Kimura Takuya J-doramas. (Which are surprisingly good, by the way. Watch Good Luck! It has a character who's JUST like Runge from Monster, except Japanese, better-looking, and a real person.)

On that note, VIDEO SPAM.

(If you watch further than the opening, I'll have to warn you of some spoiler-filled scenes immediately following it.)

The main cast is shown during that first half-minute or so, and there's a couple things I want to point out. First, Kou Shibasaki is the same actress who played Mitsuko (the psychotic chick) in Battle Royale. It's been a while since I watched the movie, so I didn't even realize it until today. Second, if you've seen the original Japanese version of Shall We Dance, you'll recognize Naota Takenaka as the dude with the bad wig who danced funny. (As a note, Shinichi Tsutsumi plays the Runge-like character.)

*goes to watch more J-doramas* :3
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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Quickie Post: Just wanted to inform you all of an article idea I came up with off-the-cuff (and during Japanese class, of all places).

Basically, it's a guide through the more peculiar or noteworthy aspects of Japanese pop culture I've encountered. It even has a table of contents!

Section I. Popular Music & Television
- Johnny's Jimusho
- Visual Kei
- Homosexual Innuendo (You'll see.)
- Variety Shows
- Commercials

Section II. Underground Fashion
- Goth
- Fruits/Street Fashion
- Ganguro
- Cosplay

Section III. Other
- All Things Western
- Products & Packaging

Since very little research is required for this one, I expect to be done with this fairly quickly; in fact, I may be able to complete it by tomorrow.

As a preview to my article, here's an animated gif taken from a Japanese commercial:



I don't even want to know what's going on up there.
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Sunday, April 16, 2006

and birds go flying at the speed of sound to show you how it all began
I'm listening to Japanese boy band music and I LIKE IT. Moreover, it's a bunch of Johnny's Jr. bands. I think the elitist J-Rock fan in me died, just a little. Though I guess I can now finally admit to being a closet KimuTaku fan.

Anyway, an article-related issue that I feel must be addressed: Stop writing top 10 lists. In other words, YAMETEEEEEEEEEEE! I see enough of those things on fansites and character shrines, so PLEASE don't spam theO with them too.

On the live-action anime front, I'm almost done watching HanaDan. It's quite awesome. Admittedly, I was somewhat doubtful of MatsuJun's acting ability while watching Gokusen, though after HanaDan, I can safely say that the boy CAN act. At the very least, he can act as a rich, spoiled asshole--not the type of pretty boy role you'd expect from a ridiculously popular boy band member.

As for the characters themselves, Tsukushi Makino/Tsukasa Domyouji is the first het pairing I've become truly interested in for months; I just love their awkward dialogue. I love how any sort of sincerity Tsukasa has is buried underneath loads of ego and feigned annoyance, which is why it's so special when he's straightforward, and I love how Tsukushi is prone to saying defensive and brash remarks in return. It makes for some very, very interesting character interaction, nevermind the rest of the F4, who are also interesting characters. (Hanazawa Rui, anyone?)

Now watch this video. :3

EDIT: L says Happy Easter.
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Friday, April 14, 2006

ano yume o narabete futari aruita ~Glamorous Days~
Operation Get-To-Know-More-Japanese-Actors is well underway thanks to the accessibility of anime-to-jdorama programs. Half of said actors turn out to be J-Pop idols, but hey.

I noticed some correlation between actors in some of the shows I'm currently watching, a few of which are shown below (note that they're all in Gokusen):

Shun Oguri (This guy is really diverse, both in his looks and his acting.)



Hiroki Narimiya



Matsuyama Kenichi



Matsumoto Jun (Wai wai!)



Note: The second image was taken right after Matsujun got socked in the face. And for the record, live-action HYD is probably the best "school drama" I've seen so far.

On that note, I highly recommend the NANA movie! I've seen it twice already (once by myself and once with a friend), and I've had its music playing on repeat since this morning. It's worth watching just to hear Mika Nakashima sing something other than a ballad for once. (FYI, the song she sings is composed by Hyde!) I suggest you all try to get your hands on it; it's really quite good!
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