Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Candy Corn is Yummy
Halloween is today. I'm not doing anything but giving out candy and dressing as L. It's easy because all I have to do is put on a white shirt and blue jeans. Then I put makeup under my eyes for the bags and dye my hair black. And mess it up a little, but I can do that later. My brother is at a friend's house doing his trick-or-treat thing, so I'm alone at home. Pretty sad that I have nothing better to do than a bad cosplay and checking out theOtaku. Oh well, at least I have candy. I'll probably make myself a TV dinner.

I read the first chapter of Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk, and I love it. I know it's an old manga but I've never read it so it's new to me. It looks promising and it's a nice thirty something volumes long so it'll take awhile to read. Plus, I've never read a basketball manga before so now is the perfect time, right?

If I get pictures of my L cosplay if I can.

-David
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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Japan's Dunce Cap
So, Japan thinks they can stop anime downloads?

I guess Japan wants to shoot themselves in the foot now.

Now, Japan's government must have been under a rock since the internet was invented. Did they not notice that, regardless of how much or little the American government tries, movies and music still get downloaded illegally? If they get the US to stop fansubbers in the US, they just have to move their servers to Canada.

Next, it makes no sense that they think they are losing money. Yes, there are greedy people who will download anime and never pay for it. However, there are also many people like me who will buy the anime as soon as it is licensed. There are also many people who will pay tons of cash to get anime they download straight from Japan. Really the only people who won't buy anime they download are greedy or have no idea what anime is outside of Naruto.

Without anime downloads, I wouldn't know nearly as many anime as I do now. I'm sure anyone who has watched a decent amount of anime by downloading it can agree, it's an easy way to find what I like and what I want. If I have to buy the first DVD for every anime I am mildly interested in, I am going to be disappointed many times. Customers who had a bad experience will tell many more people about it than a customer who had a good experience. Thus, more people are disappointed, and the company loses money fast.

This, of course, is presuming that they stop anime downloads. They won't, because they can't.

Now, I completely understand removing anime and AMV's from YouTube and other video sharing websites. Not only is that completely illegal, but it's easily found, and easily taken care of.

Not only that, but anime and AMVs on websites like that have horrible quality, and any respectable anime fan knows this and (Hopefully) doesn't watch anime or AMVs on these websites.

So, good luck in your futile efforts, Japan. You're really looking smart now.
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Saturday, October 20, 2007

   Naruto Isn't The Plague
First off, I don't like Naruto too much. It's an ok series, and I like the depth, but it's not my type of thing.

The reason Naruto is popular is because it is universally enjoyed. It's hard to fins someone who doesn't like the concept of Naruto. The only reasons I've heard for not liking Naruto are:

1. It's too long. - Okay, that is a good point. i can understand why you wouldn't like it for the length.

2. Fillerz r teh suckszzjsiai!11!1 - Bad reason. Skip the fillers, or read the manga. The manga is much better in my opinion.

3. It's stupid. - Bad reason, care to explain? No? Didn't think so...

4. It's too popular, so I hate it. There are too many fanarts of it, I hate it. It's mainstream, I hate it. - This is the worst reason of all. I don't understand why you wouldn't like something just because other people like it. That makes no sense.

I have a Naruto hoodie. It's black, and has Konohagure's symbol on the front on my chest on the right looking at me. On the back is Naruto, Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura. Behind each of them is a kanji for their name. Al of this is a dark orange. My cousin got it for me on my fifteenth birthday. I love it.

Now, I get mixed responses to wearing this. Just about all of these responses make me feel sort of bad about the anime community as a whole.

First, and most often, I get "Hey, you like Naruto, huh? That's cool, I love Naruto." They then get into some random thing about how they don't think I know about Naruto fighting Sasuke or whatever. These type of people obviously aren't anime fans, just Naruto fans. Now, unlike most people, they don't offend nor annoy me. They do not represent real anime fans, nor do they even know what anime really is. So, oh well. The problem here isn't them, it's the people who are offended or whatever, and call them mean things like "Narutards." The Naruto fans can have their fun for all I care.

Next is, "You like Naruto? Wow, I like anime and I'm so elitist. Since you like Naruto you're probably stupid and you only like Naruto, I doubt you even know what a good anime is. Naruto is for retards." This I've gotten alot recently, in different variations of course. People that I might have become good friends with just blow me off because I like Naruto. Naruto isn't the plague, you know. Why can't I like it and enjoy other, better anime as well? Apparently the majority of the anime community doesn't think that Naruto fan and anime fan can possibly go together.

A good example of this is the recent wallpaper contest. Because Naruto is liked universally and ASH-Hikari is so talented, her wallpaper won. Alright, general response is: "Wow, that's a good wallpaper. But it's Naruto...so it's bad. i hate it now. Oh noes, Naruto won." A great wallpaper put down just because it had Naruto characters. Just not fair.

Only once or twice has my hoodie ever been complimented by someone who actually knows anime outside of Naruto, Dragonball, Sailor Moon, and the such. Those times made me very happy.

So, I ask: Why can't more people be like the few who complimented my jacket and understand that Naruto fan can be in unison with anime fan?
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Friday, October 19, 2007

   My Computer Freaked Out Yesterday
Listening to: Pieces - Sum 41Reading: The Alchemyst (still)
Watching: Ninja WarriorPlaying: Bleach The Blade of FateEating: ChickenDrinking: CokeI start the day (Thursday) very tired. I'm not usually tired when I wake up in the morning, so I'm not sure why I was so tired today. I wanted to sleep on the bus but I couldn't fall asleep, so I just sat there.

I actually could sleep when I got into class, so I slept in my desk until the bell rang for English. Which was boring. We did some test that my teacher didn't tell me about, and we were paired up and did it with our partner. My parter was a girl I'd never met before. She was nice enough, but she didn't know a thing about English. I figured that it would be fair if I answered all the questions and she just wrote it down.

In art class I had finished everything on Tuesday so I didn't do much today. All I had to do was paste my pasta drawings into my sketchbook, so I helped a few people finish their sketches. I also got a 98 on my Ichigo and Shinji drawing that I am about to upload onto theO. That made me happy because anime is always looked down upon in art, so I take every chance I get to draw what I want. I hate when I'm told what to do without choices, but when I'm forced to draw a certain way I get more rebellious than ever.

In Algebra II I had everything finally explained to me, nothing in math ever makes sense.

Biology started great, then my teacher told us that next Friday would be her last day. That sucked, because she was one of my favourite teachers. So we watched Hoot, which is a great movie, and now I want to read the book. it reminded me of myself.

I got home and watched the new Bleach. It was good, wasn't great, but good. I <3'd the fact that Chad finally got to show off his powers.

I was supposed to start up a fantasy basketball league today but scheduling got in the way, so it's postponed 'till whenever. Probably next weekend.

That's about it for today...one day I'm gonna say something worth reading, I promise.

_David_

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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Watch FUNimation One Piece
* Mood: Awestruck
* Listening to: Hikari E
* Reading: The Alchemyst
* Watching: Heroes
* Playing: Guitar Hero II
* Eating: Fries
* Drinking: Kool-Aid

Alright, so I went over to my friend Matt's house the other day and
met with a few friends. I have seen most of them recently, but I finally got to see my friend Alex again, who I haven't seen in maybe a year or two. We played Guitar Hero II and Halo 3. Scot and Nicholas finally get to see the Legendary ending, but they didn't tell us that they've never seen it before. Because they didn't tell me, I ended up talking through the whole thing and felt pretty bad.

We also get a new armor after getting a few achievements called "Hyabusa." This reminds Alex of a Yu-Gi-Oh card called Hyabusa Knight. I swear it doesn't exist, but alas, we search it on the computer and it shows up.

Somehow this leads to playing Wii Sports. I lose many a game of tennis and golf, but I own at baseball. I eat all of the raisins as usual, and make a mess of the little boxes they come in. while Scot and Matt play pull I show Tim, Alex's twin, how much better I am than him at baseball on the Wii. Which isn't much. End score was 6-5, but it was the most fun and epic game of Wii baseball ever.

I'm not sure what Alex and Nicholas were doing at this time, though I'm sure Nicholas was playing Halo 3.

Next Nicholas gets angry at me because I think Halo isn't over, or at least that Halo 3 isn't the last one they are gonna make. This gets into advertising and stuff like that, and he says something about how "fanboy" is discriminating against fangirls, to which I respond "What the heck?" and fall over laughing. Scot wonders how much of a nerd you have to be to argue over Bungie's marketing campaign and I just say that you have to be like me. Then we talk about random things until we all go home.
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Friday, September 14, 2007

Welcome to the NHK Episode 1 Review
Alright, so I figured that I would make use of this space, even though no one will ever read it. I dunno, maybe Adam will randomly look here. So here is my review for "Welcome to the NHK: Episode One."


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The show starts out with a fantastic opening, and it sets the viewer up for the tone of the series as a whole. It is also quite amusing. As the episode begins we meet Tatsuhiko, a twenty-two year old hikikomori who has recently been tortured by the theme song to the fictional magical girl series "Puru Puru Pururin." The person in the apartment next to Tatsuhiko's has been playing the song every second of every day for a while, and Tatsuhiko seems to think that this is a conspiracy against him. In fact, he believes that everything is a conspiracy against him. This goes pretty deep, and I will not explain everything here. This is one of the first parts of the anime that I enjoyed quite a bit - how people, especially hikikomori, have little self-confidence these days. How they deal with this problem is what sets people apart, and this series touches upon that thoroughly. Again, I won't spoil it for you. Now, he begins to believe that a real-life channel, the NHK, is actually a conspiracy, creating a nation of hikikomori who watch their programs constantly. And it doesn't stop there. Soon afterwards, a woman and a girl show up at Tatsuhiko's door trying to advertise their solution to the growing problem of hikikomori in the nation. Tatsuhiko reacts strangely and retreats back into his home, almost admitting his hikikomori state. He finds an interest in the girl, and she seems to find an interest in her as well. He realizes that he needs to prevent himself from truly becoming a NEET, and attempts to apply for a job at a manga cafe. His self-conscienceness catches up to him again there, as the girl from before happens to work there. He once again fails to overcome his weaknesses and doesn't apply. She gives him a message, though...to meet her in the park. I'll stop here, because I don't want to spoil anything. The ending is once again fairly amusing, and overly strange...I'm not sure what to think of it.

Episode One rating: 8/10

Look forward to the Episode two review.
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Tuesday, April 3, 2007

   Linkin Park's New Single
Their new single, What I've Done, came out yesterday. Yes, it does sound different just like Mike said it would. Chester isn't screaming the entire time and Mike isn't rapping in the song at all. I doubt that he never raps in the entire album. The instruments are more raw, also just as Mike said they would be. I don't think that Mike raps as much as he did in earlier albums because he worked in the development of the album more than he used to. The song's lyrics are very thought provoking, and you can't tell what it's really trying to say with only one listen, though you get an idea from the chorus.

Now, on the video. It's alot more political than their videos used to be. The biggest change, though, is that Mr. Hahn decided to make a video that actually makes sense! Their videos, to tell the truth, don't usually have much of a meaning. But this one is nice and thought out well. Warner Bros. removed all of the videos from YouTube, so you'll just have to find it yourself if you haven't heard it yet. Sorry!

See you later.

-David

P.S. If you want to see a song on the playlist at the top, just comment and recommend it. I'll add it for you!
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