After suffering from anime watching OD (where I couldn't get myself to watch anime yet was still feeling excessive amounts of ennui), I decided to take up a few games to cure my boredom. In the overall case, my opinion is that Legend of Mana is significantly better than Seiken Densetsu 3, despite what everyone else says.
In actuality I had started Legend of Mana a while ago (about 5 years ago, when I was still in high school) yet never finished it because I was told the game copy I had (which was an illegal CD >.> ) had some bug where if I beat the game it would freeze. Not liking that, I never beat the game. Eventually I lost my memory card as well and I stopped playing Legend of Mana (along with some other PS games). During this summer I had the random idea to try Legend of Mana again but I remembered I thought it was an awesome game. And I still think its an awesome game. Legend of Mana encourages a large amount of creativity and innovation while still setting enough rules for the game to work (a game without rules isn't fun, and rules are sometimes where creativity can stem from as well). The gameplay isn't hard at all so the player doesn't necessarily have to focus on levelling to beat the boss but instead on other more interesting aspects of the game. (There is actually a nico video of an example where a person didn't level at all - by not collecting EXP crystals - and yet beat the game in "No Future" mode where all monsters and bosses were level 99... it was really amusing). Of these aspects there are pet raising, golem making, instrument (magic) making, weapon/armor tempering, skill learning, and quests in general for the player to go through. IMO each aspect in itself can be a "game" of sorts and the player can decide which one he wants to do in the game. I've tried my share in working all of these except the golem making and found it very entertaining.
-Pet raising is fun in that you grow fruit and then feed them to pets and their stats and personality change. It's quite amusing to see how your pet acts in the battlefield due to their personality and watch stats rise rediculously high as you feed them delicious foods with fun names.
-Instrument Making I haven't looked into significantly especially since there's no real FAQ guide on it, although the concept is simple enough. I just created strong enough magic instruments for me to use in the game.
-Tempering can be very entertaining, yet extremely complicated. The FAQs liken it to chemical reactions and this is what insterested me. First off, you can temper almost ANYTHING you get into a weapon or armor. This includes the fruit you grow in your backyard or the random (and seemingly useless) items you win in battles. and of course these things have effects that can modify your weapon and armor. These effects, like the FAQ says, can work similar to compounds in a chemical reaction; there are even things like catalysts to get over an energy barrier and reach another level, and cards/compounds which won't work if combined with other things. It can be dangerous as well, since it can lower the effectiveness of your tempering item. Finally it can also be a good way to earn money since some things you compound will be worth more after you temper some things together. Overall I never became an expert on this and worked on it only for one night, but it was really fun and I made some spiffy weapon that OHKOs monsters with one arrow shot and OHKOs bosses with one special.
In sort, I had much too much fun with tempering. :V
-Skill Learning isn't as complicated but it also isn't just "level up, learn a new skill". There are some basic skills set that one can use and depending on the combination of basic skills one can learn new skills and even some new special techniques with the weapon they're using. This isn't very complicated but each skill does somethign different in battle so its fun to play around with a bunch of moves and set up a character that works for the player. There's even a way to load other characters from the memory card and battle them... that's actually quite fun if I had more players to play LoM with. Well, my sister is playing but it will be hard to play her since she's still pretty new and it would be rather unfair if I battled her in the arena. :P
-And of course, quests to make the story interesting. There's no linear plotline but there's three main stories one has to get through in order to activate the final quests in the game. I only got through one of the stories in my most recent trial and remembered getting through another a long time ago, but there was one more I haven't finished so I'll be getting through that one soon. Overall in terms of the characters its probably without a doubt that Pearl is the most moe character in LoM (with main character debatable but I used the less-moe character so I dunno :V). This is especially because about 70% of the characters are some animal hybrid (ie, furry) and of the other 30% only Pearl acts rather cutely in compared to the others...well... Diana could probably be moe too.
Actually, I take that back. Pearl is the most humanlike moe character, but characters like Elle (a siren) and Flameshe (a mermaid) are very moe too. But you can't get Flameshe as a partner and Elle can only use magic, which is cool but rather limited. Well. If you use Pearl she can't do crap until she turns into another character, which then she's not moe, HOWEVER IF YOU'RE USING PEARL YOU CAN COMBO YOUR CROUCHES AND I FIND THIS ENTERTAINING FOR WHATEVER REASON.
AAAB236BXY- long chain combo for any usual character. For Pearl it gets you like 5-6 crouches in a row. Why do this? I dunno, but it sure is entertaining. :V
Seiken Densetsu 3.
I found this game remarkably cheesey and rather lame compared to the ratings it gets, but perhaps it was innovative and new at the time. Obviously with the whole stat raising and real time action gameplay it gives it plays a lot like RO so I never had that much trouble playing the game. Despite what others may say I don't think the difficulty of the game is that high if you're playing normally- I died about 2 times because I did some stupid stuff but otherwise it seemed pretty easy. Although my game style is to level quite some levels before playing the boss and I also had a healer so it might have been that I just had a really easy team to use. Maybe its a bit annoying in that I didn't know what to do sometimes so I had to use the guide (where it tells me something stupid, usually, but not as bad as when I'm lost in LoM. Geez like 3 times when I got stuck and had no idea how to continue the quest even though it seemed like I went everywhere it told me "go home and... etc" and I'm like "wtf" and I go home and boom the quest continues and I feel dumb). The storylines... could be better. Final Fantasy storylines definitely make SD3's storylines seem rather lame, especially since plot is so predictable... even if there ARE different stories for different characters... but oh well. I got through the game anyway.
So WHY did I play this game in the first place, then, if I didn't find much interest in it? It's because of RIESZ. The ONLY thing you'll probably find if you search for SD3 fanart is pictures of Riesz, who for whatever reason is made to be incredibly moe. Not that she wasn't moe in the game, but perhaps because she's the best looking and has the best personality out of the three girls (one is a loli, the other is... a term I prefer not to use, but let's just say she's good with the opposite gender). SO ESSENTIALLY, because she's everywhere whenever SD3 is mentioned I decided to play the game just so I know her story and know what's going on, and so when I go look at SD3 fanart I don't feel guilty for not knowing who she is and can fully appreciate the art, so to speak.
...:V
Afterwards I tried Xenogears but I couldn't get it to work (gets stuck in the world map) so I gave up and decided to end my gaming for the summer (with the exception of replaying some LoM at times). But OMG RIESZ IS SO MOE WHYYYYY. :(
29.7.08
Moe Ranking
... from some other person's blog :V
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Please rate the following with 1~10points for moeness and comment~
(Low～Medium～HIgh →1～5～10 )
Please use 2D as the basis of moeness. Optional: If you want to state difference between moeness in 2D and IRL
Feel free to add categories that you think are moe.
●Uniform (制服) ： 7
Perhaps its more or less a concept of exoticness since in America public school students are allowed to wear whatever they want, that the moeness of school uniforms comes into being. Whatever the case school uniforms seem to be cute, most of the time. Though admittedly there are some designs which are questionable.
●Beast transformation (獸人化)：4
Not a fan of catgirls or doggirls or any mammalian creature hybrid of a female human myself, however I like the concept of angels or bird-girl hybrids. The flashy wings and floating feathers must do something.
●Glasses (眼鏡) ： 1
On a personal preference I strongly dislike girls with glasses, with very few exceptions (these exceptions are not characters that are my favorite in the series, either). Not that I think that they are flat out ugly but something about it makes me think they're not cute. Perhaps since I wore glasses ever since I was really young there's some indication of "that looks too much like me" in it?
Although, I think guys in anime wearing glasses is pretty cool. :V Generally what I don't like to see on girls I like to see on guy characters.
●Tsundere (ツンデレ) ： 4
Generally speaking I'm not a fan of tsundere and would have given it a lower ranking had there not been some especially good tsundere characters lately (*coughClannadandLuckyStarcough*). In a way you could say I'm "tsundere against tsundere" seeing how I usually deny the moeness of tsundere but became recently more attracted to some from a few of those series.
Its very specific, however. The tsunderes I typically like are not the super loud and act-before-you-think kind, but more like those who are usually quiet or talk quite intelligently and can win you in a debate if you attempted to argue with them. Since most tsunderes seem to enjoy fighting over talking, this eliminates most tsunderes off the list.
The definition of tsundere has changed remarkably so in the last couple of years, I believe.
●Bad Guy (悪人) ： 3
Very unlikely that I would like the bad guys (or girls) in a series, unless they're not truly "bad" which wouldn't make them bad guys/girls in the first place. I do think conversion of good to bad can be interesting sometimes, though.
●Maid (メイド) ： 8
This is similar to schoolgirl outfit in that, because I probably don't see it often, I find it more foriegn and exotic, thus more cute. Elegance and courtesy is also a plus, including when characters speak to you so politely when its very obvious they're angry at you... I dunno why that is cute. :P
●To be looked down upon(見下される) ： 1
This sounds sort of masochistic. :V WELL if the guy is incredibly stupid then maybe he deserves to be looked down upon, but generally speaking I like speaking to people on the same level. Arrogance is usually not a good trait. Except in Code Geass, where the guy I believe is truly smart enough to be arrogant.
I guess in that sense if the girl is smart enough and acts well enough then having her look down isn't a negative trait but generally if that girl is smart enough she'll be smart enough to know how to act like she's NOT looking down at you, so she can take advantage of you. :V
●Cross dressing/Unisex dressed(中性的容姿) ： 4
GOOD traps are so good that in the social definition I would still classify them as girls. However you have to do a SERIOUSLY GOOD JOB (in both anime or in real life) for me to think that way. Likewise, reverse traps that are so good that they look like guys, I will classify them as guys and won't even consider them as moe.
●Blond hair with Green eyes(金髮碧眼) ：7
Yes I think that would work. :V
●Small body： 8
Overall, cuter than a big body. But highly dependent on hairstyle and personality. There have been times where I admire an older onee-san like character over a more loli-ish character because of character design and personality.
●Useless guy (ダメ男)：4
...Or girl? If it's something like a hikikomori girl then it signifies dependence on another, which may be cute. This sadly contradicts almost what I said with the "being look down upon" situation but I think that's mostly human nature. Maybe wanting to be depended upon is a trait naturally wanted?
LONG HAIR: 10
SHORT HAIR: 3
-----
Please rate the following with 1~10points for moeness and comment~
(Low～Medium～HIgh →1～5～10 )
Please use 2D as the basis of moeness. Optional: If you want to state difference between moeness in 2D and IRL
Feel free to add categories that you think are moe.
●Uniform (制服) ： 7
Perhaps its more or less a concept of exoticness since in America public school students are allowed to wear whatever they want, that the moeness of school uniforms comes into being. Whatever the case school uniforms seem to be cute, most of the time. Though admittedly there are some designs which are questionable.
●Beast transformation (獸人化)：4
Not a fan of catgirls or doggirls or any mammalian creature hybrid of a female human myself, however I like the concept of angels or bird-girl hybrids. The flashy wings and floating feathers must do something.
●Glasses (眼鏡) ： 1
On a personal preference I strongly dislike girls with glasses, with very few exceptions (these exceptions are not characters that are my favorite in the series, either). Not that I think that they are flat out ugly but something about it makes me think they're not cute. Perhaps since I wore glasses ever since I was really young there's some indication of "that looks too much like me" in it?
Although, I think guys in anime wearing glasses is pretty cool. :V Generally what I don't like to see on girls I like to see on guy characters.
●Tsundere (ツンデレ) ： 4
Generally speaking I'm not a fan of tsundere and would have given it a lower ranking had there not been some especially good tsundere characters lately (*coughClannadandLuckyStarcough*). In a way you could say I'm "tsundere against tsundere" seeing how I usually deny the moeness of tsundere but became recently more attracted to some from a few of those series.
Its very specific, however. The tsunderes I typically like are not the super loud and act-before-you-think kind, but more like those who are usually quiet or talk quite intelligently and can win you in a debate if you attempted to argue with them. Since most tsunderes seem to enjoy fighting over talking, this eliminates most tsunderes off the list.
The definition of tsundere has changed remarkably so in the last couple of years, I believe.
●Bad Guy (悪人) ： 3
Very unlikely that I would like the bad guys (or girls) in a series, unless they're not truly "bad" which wouldn't make them bad guys/girls in the first place. I do think conversion of good to bad can be interesting sometimes, though.
●Maid (メイド) ： 8
This is similar to schoolgirl outfit in that, because I probably don't see it often, I find it more foriegn and exotic, thus more cute. Elegance and courtesy is also a plus, including when characters speak to you so politely when its very obvious they're angry at you... I dunno why that is cute. :P
●To be looked down upon(見下される) ： 1
This sounds sort of masochistic. :V WELL if the guy is incredibly stupid then maybe he deserves to be looked down upon, but generally speaking I like speaking to people on the same level. Arrogance is usually not a good trait. Except in Code Geass, where the guy I believe is truly smart enough to be arrogant.
I guess in that sense if the girl is smart enough and acts well enough then having her look down isn't a negative trait but generally if that girl is smart enough she'll be smart enough to know how to act like she's NOT looking down at you, so she can take advantage of you. :V
●Cross dressing/Unisex dressed(中性的容姿) ： 4
GOOD traps are so good that in the social definition I would still classify them as girls. However you have to do a SERIOUSLY GOOD JOB (in both anime or in real life) for me to think that way. Likewise, reverse traps that are so good that they look like guys, I will classify them as guys and won't even consider them as moe.
●Blond hair with Green eyes(金髮碧眼) ：7
Yes I think that would work. :V
●Small body： 8
Overall, cuter than a big body. But highly dependent on hairstyle and personality. There have been times where I admire an older onee-san like character over a more loli-ish character because of character design and personality.
●Useless guy (ダメ男)：4
...Or girl? If it's something like a hikikomori girl then it signifies dependence on another, which may be cute. This sadly contradicts almost what I said with the "being look down upon" situation but I think that's mostly human nature. Maybe wanting to be depended upon is a trait naturally wanted?
●Old man/Ojisama(おじ様)：1
Mostly apathetic. Can be smart at times. Not really meant for a Moe ranking and should rather be (N/A). Old Women are not attractive however.
●Loli/Shota(ロリショタ ) ： 7
Falls under same category as Small Body. Except Shota is doubtful. Can be cute at times though.
●The Quiet Type (無口系): 7
A good personality to have. However, it must be *blush*/timid/shy quiet over no-emotion quiet. I am not a general fan of no-emotion quiet characters, even if they're meant for character development to have some. Also, I don't like quiet characters that wear glasses, its like it augments the un-moeness. :V
●Good job~!: 6
For symbolic interpretation I will classify those as the cheery, excited happy types (usually sporty too). Again its a personality trait that's dependent on character appearance and the type of cheeriness they possess. But generally optimism is a good thing, right?
------
BTW Where is the mention of hairstyle?!? The only mention is like blond hair which is cool but doesn't talk about hair length... Hair length and style is quite important in moeness as the same character with long hair can be dramatically more cuter than a character with short hair. :V
FOR ADDING THE TOPICS:LONG HAIR: 10
SHORT HAIR: 3
EDIT: Making a few edits.
28.7.08
Ramblings on a Cell Phone
I have some things I wrote up when I was bored/excited on my cell phone that I now think is just taking up memory, but I don't want to delete them without putting them for them to be forgotten forever. So I'll just post all of them in this blog post.
"Perfection can be described in the form of a graph; the x axis is effort, the y axis is achievement. For some, the graph is linear; for some, it is exponential, and others it is horizontal. For myself, it is logarithmic; perfection can never be obtained, but the more I try, the closer I can get to that horizontal asymptote."
"What's a worse feeling? Having something important to do, but not doing it and feeling guilty, or having nothing to do, but feel like you should have something to do and feeling guilty?"
"Mirror neurons and AI. If humanlike AI is to exist, we must learn to mimic mirror neurons. In other words, make a computer 'understand' other people. Perhaps it is easier to start with humans >> computers. Would it be better to remove mirror neurons, or improve super neurons. But first, there are other technicalities to worry about."
"Perfection can be described in the form of a graph; the x axis is effort, the y axis is achievement. For some, the graph is linear; for some, it is exponential, and others it is horizontal. For myself, it is logarithmic; perfection can never be obtained, but the more I try, the closer I can get to that horizontal asymptote."
"What's a worse feeling? Having something important to do, but not doing it and feeling guilty, or having nothing to do, but feel like you should have something to do and feeling guilty?"
"Mirror neurons and AI. If humanlike AI is to exist, we must learn to mimic mirror neurons. In other words, make a computer 'understand' other people. Perhaps it is easier to start with humans >> computers. Would it be better to remove mirror neurons, or improve super neurons. But first, there are other technicalities to worry about."
22.7.08
Pikachurin
Everyone should look at this even if you have no idea what I'm talking about. Which you probably don't.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-22/research-team-names-protein-after-pokemon-pikachu
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-07-22/research-team-names-protein-after-pokemon-pikachu
16.7.08
A common, friendly and effective method of initiating conversation.
TheMysteriousBox (19:55:54): OMG ONLINE AGAIN
TheMysteriousBox (19:55:57): you're really slacking off.
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:23): HOW IS ME BEING HOME SLACKING OFF!?
TheMysteriousBox (19:56:30): you should be working!
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:31): Jesus Christ, I work night shift
TheMysteriousBox (19:56:38): oh you changed?
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:38): After fucking night shift and yous ay I'm slacking off!?
TheMysteriousBox (19:56:55): but you were online 5 times in a row! it was a miracle!
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:56): WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CHANGED I'VE ALWAYS HAD NIGHT SHIFT!
ProfJbWolf II (19:57:02): HOW iS THAT A MIRACLE!?
TheMysteriousBox (19:57:10): because before I'd never see you online!
TheMysteriousBox (19:55:57): you're really slacking off.
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:23): HOW IS ME BEING HOME SLACKING OFF!?
TheMysteriousBox (19:56:30): you should be working!
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:31): Jesus Christ, I work night shift
TheMysteriousBox (19:56:38): oh you changed?
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:38): After fucking night shift and yous ay I'm slacking off!?
TheMysteriousBox (19:56:55): but you were online 5 times in a row! it was a miracle!
ProfJbWolf II (19:56:56): WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CHANGED I'VE ALWAYS HAD NIGHT SHIFT!
ProfJbWolf II (19:57:02): HOW iS THAT A MIRACLE!?
TheMysteriousBox (19:57:10): because before I'd never see you online!
12.7.08
Mach's Radio
He's letting me stream sometimes, so I'll provide random publicity. LISTEN
http://mach.dyndns.org:8000
http://mach.dyndns.org:8000
11.7.08
ALICE CARROLL
THE GREATEST UNDINE IN AQUA. IT CANNOT BE DENIED.
What is this feeling! It is a "this anime episode was so worthy that I cannot dare soil my eyes with any other anime at the moment" feeling! Gah!!!
So btw did I ever mention that Aria is a great series. :V
What is this feeling! It is a "this anime episode was so worthy that I cannot dare soil my eyes with any other anime at the moment" feeling! Gah!!!
So btw did I ever mention that Aria is a great series. :V
7.7.08
6.7.08
ANIME EXPO 2008
ONCE AGAIN BULLET-POINT FORMAT OVERVIEW OF ANIME EXPO, ONLY THIS TIME WITH MORE DETAIL!!!!
-Epic Pre-Con Registration Adventure: Seeing how the years before waiting in line for registration has been seen almost as an event for AX in itself, it was critical that I had get the badges asap without waiting in line too long. Originally I had thought it was going to be easy but then I realized that the registration times on the day before AX (3-8PM) severely conflicted with my summer class times (4-7). It was a difficult decision but I decided to make a run for the con at the very last hour in hopes that the line wouldn't be too long by the time I get there and miss the chance for registration (my class and parent's house is like, a 30 minute drive without traffic to LACC). Luckily, there was no traffic.
However, it seemed that all of that was not necessary since registration was ridiculously organized this year and I got my badge (and my sister's) in less than 2 minutes. It was so surprising that even the volunteer organizers were confused. ("Sir, you can't just go the computers you have to wait in li--*checks, sees there's no line* eer, go ahead.") I was so dumbfounded that I felt it would be a waste to have come over here and only spend 5 minutes at the con then go back, so I decided to explore a bit and figure out where everything was.
Finding the Nokia theater took 3 times as long as getting registered.
-Parking: 12 dollars per entry, no re-entry. It almost seemed like I was paying for a hotel stay (with roommates of course) with just the damn parking cost alone. Probably, with all 4 days + reentry due to lunch + pre-registration, parking costed me about 84$.
...where has all my money for anime gone...
Well, at least they accepted ATM card. :V
-Thursday, Shokotan Panel: I woke up a bit late due to jet lag (11 AM) and had to turn in something to my school, then I went to the convention. Checked out console gaming room, didn't find anything that interested me, met up with high school friend, wandered around like idiots with nothing to do (because we really had nothing to do) until the Shokotan panel, which proved to be really interesting and funny.
Overall lesson: Shokotan is a fetishist.
The panel ran overtime, and since I had a class to catch at 4 PM I was a bit panicking by the time I ran out of the panel. Traffic, as expected, was terrible at the time and I ended up into class 30 minutes late. Oh well, being tardy was worth seeing Shokotan doing her famous Bruce Lee impressions. :V
I was thinking of coming back to the convention center but stupid 12 dollar parking + my sister was tired and wanted to go straight to my apartment convinced me the panel "Anime in China" was not worth it.
-Friday Morning- Mostly spent in line for tickets we could have gotten easily even if we didn't stay in line. I let my sister go browse the Artist Alley while I stayed in line watching people spam like 4chan on DS Picochat. Lines. The only time when DS Picochat is actually useful. Or used at all. After we got tickets we went to the exibit hall and bought random 5 dollar manga that we can read when we went to the concert
-Jyunkai/Yoko Ishida Concert- They had cool music videos before the concert started! So many recent anime music that I recognized! I thought that was cool. Anyway the concert was good and significantly LONGER than the other concerts at AX, which I thought was neat. The one thing I was disappionted in is that AX didn't let the idols use the entire stage (the stage curtains were closed all the time) however the music and presence of the idol was more than satisfactory. Yoko Ishida mostly did a 10 minute combined version of her previous concert, along with some random Para Para dancing songs of popular anime theme songs. Jyunkai sung the Fate/Stay Night ED of course and a bunch of other songs (mostly from Ah! My Goddess). Overall Jyunkai's voice is very melodic and "rich", so her music always seems deeply moving. I also think her sense of fashion is really good, even though she herself is pretty nice but not awesome, so to speak.
My sister also really liked Jyunkai. She is now a Jyunkai-fan. :V
-Afternoon crap: Ate Orochan Ramen for lunch because everything else was closed. Went to the exhibit hall afterwards. Tried to look for nekomimi headbands but we reasoned that all of them were way too expensive and ended up not buying any. So my sister's costume wasn't quite complete but its ok. I think.
-SWR: At one booth in the exhibit hall one of the vendors was playing against a CPU in SWR, so I asked him if I could play. He at first stated that he'd let me play but he wouldn't play me himself since he thinks he sucks, but then another girl came up (dressed up as Alice! :O) and said she wanted to play! So we started! And the first thing we found out is we have no idea what the controls were! I was already not used to using a controller so that in a way was already a handicap, but we spent two fail battles and a good amount of time in config trying to make our controls work. After getting the controls right, I used Alice to beat her Reimu. Alice-chan was beaten by Alice...There's something ironic about that :V Anyway, other people wanted to play so I let another guy play and etc etc etc exhibit hall closes and we were kicked out. But not before getting Alice (and Marisa) cosplay picture on my sister's small crappy cell phone (YES WE FORGOT A CAMERA ORZ).
-Evening?: We didn't have much to do until the Circus panel I had to attend so we decided to goto the manga cafe and read a couple manga. After reading a couple manga and freezing to death we decided to go outside and defrost. At that point some random (professional? he looks professional) photographer was like "OMG that's an awesome pose let me take a picture of you" to my sister. Then we ate lunchables and watched fireworks partially covered by a tent-parking lot and a few palm trees. Happy 4th of July everyone.
-Circus Panel: I didn't win anything. :( Oh, and Da Capo coming out in English for 80 bucks. wtf 80 bucks. :( But even more sadly I think I'll actually buy it this time. :( Yes I am a sad Da Capo Fan. :(
-Saturday Morning: Yes we waited in line for tickets again BUT BEFORE THAT WE WENT TO THE JYUNKAI PANEL. And watch people ask questions like "What do you look for in a boyfriend." Because every time someone asks that at a panel. EVERY TIME. Oh, and we wanted to look for Jyunkai CDs since we didn't get one after the Jyunkai concert (had to go eat, it was already 3 PM) but we could never find one at AX. Geneon somehow sponsored the concert but (afaik) they've been long dead and didn't have a booth so there was no music selling. Which is sad, I used to buy KOTOKO from the Geneon booth. D:
We never found another Jyunkai CD in all of AX and even at the local Kinokuya (sp?) bookstore in little tokyo.
-Shokotan Concert: One of the most wild and Japan-ish concerts in all of the history of AX. (Although KOTOKO still pwns because of the cell phone waving everyone eventually did during her concert) She sang a lot of songs both me and my sister knew, and even one that my sister knew (somehow she had it on her ipod) that I didn't. She likes to cosplay a lot and even did the haruhi dance, which for a while I thought was interesting since I thought that would be covered by some copyright stuff for another professional idol to do that, but then again she's good friends with Hirano Aya so probably not bad. Shokotan's fanbase is extremely scary. Also, I am convinced that the one idol singer in Gintama is based off of Shokotan and her extreme fanbase.
Sanddollarman wtf. :V
-More Afternoon Crap: After participating in the Great Exodus of Jaywalkers we went to eat curry. Then we went to the japanese bookstore right next door to check things out even though they have their own booth at the exhibit hall. And my sister couldnt' find a Jyunkai CD. So we went back and looked at pretty pictures at artist alley, then bought more stuff in the exhibit hall. Then we watched spoof videos of FF6 with FMA/Zetsubou Sensei/Ouran High School intros and autoplay mario thing with a bunch of songs which I watched before but my sister didn't so she thought it was cute. This was all at the SWR booth. :V
-More Evening?: Went to the karaoke room for 2 seconds before I left because I couldn't stand the music (they WEREN'T KARAOKING THEY WERE DOING ROCK BAND OR SOMETHING). Went to get a coat, then ate seaweed, lunchables, and really disgusting smoothie at the Yoko Ishida Panel. Then I left my sister next to the Manga Cafe for a while so I can goto an 18+ panel. Stupid restrictions -_-...
-JAST Panel: IwonanHgameinaraffle. :V
- Sunday: I came, I bought a gift for a normal art major friend that does not live in the US, then bought some random broccoli (manga) before watching the miniconcert at their booth. They sing good music and they sing for Da Capo, so it was fun. Then I came home and typed up this blog entry. Now I have to do my essay and crap.
-Team Duo- AX 2008's theme in my mind was the AX of twos. As in, from what I can see a lot of people hung out in parties of 2, me included (with my sister). Tony's girlfriend had come over from Alaska so that was the first major duo that I saw standing out (Tony spent all his time with her, of course). And then I felt that Joe and Yan spent a lot of time hanging out with each other imho... Alice seemed to be with Valerie a lot... Gary also had one of his friends to hang out with. Two is a lucky number? It's certainly convenient. Being alone is quite lonely and can make AX not fun, while having 3 or more people may start making people that are not used to socials rather uncomfortable.
-Was my sister cosplaying? Kind of. She was trying to base her dress off this random picture I found a long time ago (it's somewhere in one of my facebook album, the picture of a catgirl with purple hair kissing someone. Except that my sister didn't have the catears/tail, didn't have the purple hair and definately isn't kissing anyone.) Except her outfit and makeup made her kind of look gothic and she was kind of flustered by that, but I said it was ok since it was at AX and half the female population look gothic anyway, whether they actually are or just cosplaying.
Not that anyone would be interested in knowing, but I had a somewhat matching outfit with a black polo shirt that my sister/mom bought and said looked nice on me. :V and I wore slacks (as usual) with a Kagami hanging out of my pocket. Which, I thought, looked cool. What! I did!
...:V
Pictures to come when my sister takes them off her cell phone.
-Epic Pre-Con Registration Adventure: Seeing how the years before waiting in line for registration has been seen almost as an event for AX in itself, it was critical that I had get the badges asap without waiting in line too long. Originally I had thought it was going to be easy but then I realized that the registration times on the day before AX (3-8PM) severely conflicted with my summer class times (4-7). It was a difficult decision but I decided to make a run for the con at the very last hour in hopes that the line wouldn't be too long by the time I get there and miss the chance for registration (my class and parent's house is like, a 30 minute drive without traffic to LACC). Luckily, there was no traffic.
However, it seemed that all of that was not necessary since registration was ridiculously organized this year and I got my badge (and my sister's) in less than 2 minutes. It was so surprising that even the volunteer organizers were confused. ("Sir, you can't just go the computers you have to wait in li--*checks, sees there's no line* eer, go ahead.") I was so dumbfounded that I felt it would be a waste to have come over here and only spend 5 minutes at the con then go back, so I decided to explore a bit and figure out where everything was.
Finding the Nokia theater took 3 times as long as getting registered.
-Parking: 12 dollars per entry, no re-entry. It almost seemed like I was paying for a hotel stay (with roommates of course) with just the damn parking cost alone. Probably, with all 4 days + reentry due to lunch + pre-registration, parking costed me about 84$.
...where has all my money for anime gone...
Well, at least they accepted ATM card. :V
-Thursday, Shokotan Panel: I woke up a bit late due to jet lag (11 AM) and had to turn in something to my school, then I went to the convention. Checked out console gaming room, didn't find anything that interested me, met up with high school friend, wandered around like idiots with nothing to do (because we really had nothing to do) until the Shokotan panel, which proved to be really interesting and funny.
Overall lesson: Shokotan is a fetishist.
The panel ran overtime, and since I had a class to catch at 4 PM I was a bit panicking by the time I ran out of the panel. Traffic, as expected, was terrible at the time and I ended up into class 30 minutes late. Oh well, being tardy was worth seeing Shokotan doing her famous Bruce Lee impressions. :V
I was thinking of coming back to the convention center but stupid 12 dollar parking + my sister was tired and wanted to go straight to my apartment convinced me the panel "Anime in China" was not worth it.
-Friday Morning- Mostly spent in line for tickets we could have gotten easily even if we didn't stay in line. I let my sister go browse the Artist Alley while I stayed in line watching people spam like 4chan on DS Picochat. Lines. The only time when DS Picochat is actually useful. Or used at all. After we got tickets we went to the exibit hall and bought random 5 dollar manga that we can read when we went to the concert
-Jyunkai/Yoko Ishida Concert- They had cool music videos before the concert started! So many recent anime music that I recognized! I thought that was cool. Anyway the concert was good and significantly LONGER than the other concerts at AX, which I thought was neat. The one thing I was disappionted in is that AX didn't let the idols use the entire stage (the stage curtains were closed all the time) however the music and presence of the idol was more than satisfactory. Yoko Ishida mostly did a 10 minute combined version of her previous concert, along with some random Para Para dancing songs of popular anime theme songs. Jyunkai sung the Fate/Stay Night ED of course and a bunch of other songs (mostly from Ah! My Goddess). Overall Jyunkai's voice is very melodic and "rich", so her music always seems deeply moving. I also think her sense of fashion is really good, even though she herself is pretty nice but not awesome, so to speak.
My sister also really liked Jyunkai. She is now a Jyunkai-fan. :V
-Afternoon crap: Ate Orochan Ramen for lunch because everything else was closed. Went to the exhibit hall afterwards. Tried to look for nekomimi headbands but we reasoned that all of them were way too expensive and ended up not buying any. So my sister's costume wasn't quite complete but its ok. I think.
-SWR: At one booth in the exhibit hall one of the vendors was playing against a CPU in SWR, so I asked him if I could play. He at first stated that he'd let me play but he wouldn't play me himself since he thinks he sucks, but then another girl came up (dressed up as Alice! :O) and said she wanted to play! So we started! And the first thing we found out is we have no idea what the controls were! I was already not used to using a controller so that in a way was already a handicap, but we spent two fail battles and a good amount of time in config trying to make our controls work. After getting the controls right, I used Alice to beat her Reimu. Alice-chan was beaten by Alice...There's something ironic about that :V Anyway, other people wanted to play so I let another guy play and etc etc etc exhibit hall closes and we were kicked out. But not before getting Alice (and Marisa) cosplay picture on my sister's small crappy cell phone (YES WE FORGOT A CAMERA ORZ).
-Evening?: We didn't have much to do until the Circus panel I had to attend so we decided to goto the manga cafe and read a couple manga. After reading a couple manga and freezing to death we decided to go outside and defrost. At that point some random (professional? he looks professional) photographer was like "OMG that's an awesome pose let me take a picture of you" to my sister. Then we ate lunchables and watched fireworks partially covered by a tent-parking lot and a few palm trees. Happy 4th of July everyone.
-Circus Panel: I didn't win anything. :( Oh, and Da Capo coming out in English for 80 bucks. wtf 80 bucks. :( But even more sadly I think I'll actually buy it this time. :( Yes I am a sad Da Capo Fan. :(
-Saturday Morning: Yes we waited in line for tickets again BUT BEFORE THAT WE WENT TO THE JYUNKAI PANEL. And watch people ask questions like "What do you look for in a boyfriend." Because every time someone asks that at a panel. EVERY TIME. Oh, and we wanted to look for Jyunkai CDs since we didn't get one after the Jyunkai concert (had to go eat, it was already 3 PM) but we could never find one at AX. Geneon somehow sponsored the concert but (afaik) they've been long dead and didn't have a booth so there was no music selling. Which is sad, I used to buy KOTOKO from the Geneon booth. D:
We never found another Jyunkai CD in all of AX and even at the local Kinokuya (sp?) bookstore in little tokyo.
-Shokotan Concert: One of the most wild and Japan-ish concerts in all of the history of AX. (Although KOTOKO still pwns because of the cell phone waving everyone eventually did during her concert) She sang a lot of songs both me and my sister knew, and even one that my sister knew (somehow she had it on her ipod) that I didn't. She likes to cosplay a lot and even did the haruhi dance, which for a while I thought was interesting since I thought that would be covered by some copyright stuff for another professional idol to do that, but then again she's good friends with Hirano Aya so probably not bad. Shokotan's fanbase is extremely scary. Also, I am convinced that the one idol singer in Gintama is based off of Shokotan and her extreme fanbase.
Sanddollarman wtf. :V
-More Afternoon Crap: After participating in the Great Exodus of Jaywalkers we went to eat curry. Then we went to the japanese bookstore right next door to check things out even though they have their own booth at the exhibit hall. And my sister couldnt' find a Jyunkai CD. So we went back and looked at pretty pictures at artist alley, then bought more stuff in the exhibit hall. Then we watched spoof videos of FF6 with FMA/Zetsubou Sensei/Ouran High School intros and autoplay mario thing with a bunch of songs which I watched before but my sister didn't so she thought it was cute. This was all at the SWR booth. :V
-More Evening?: Went to the karaoke room for 2 seconds before I left because I couldn't stand the music (they WEREN'T KARAOKING THEY WERE DOING ROCK BAND OR SOMETHING). Went to get a coat, then ate seaweed, lunchables, and really disgusting smoothie at the Yoko Ishida Panel. Then I left my sister next to the Manga Cafe for a while so I can goto an 18+ panel. Stupid restrictions -_-...
-JAST Panel: IwonanHgameinaraffle. :V
- Sunday: I came, I bought a gift for a normal art major friend that does not live in the US, then bought some random broccoli (manga) before watching the miniconcert at their booth. They sing good music and they sing for Da Capo, so it was fun. Then I came home and typed up this blog entry. Now I have to do my essay and crap.
-Team Duo- AX 2008's theme in my mind was the AX of twos. As in, from what I can see a lot of people hung out in parties of 2, me included (with my sister). Tony's girlfriend had come over from Alaska so that was the first major duo that I saw standing out (Tony spent all his time with her, of course). And then I felt that Joe and Yan spent a lot of time hanging out with each other imho... Alice seemed to be with Valerie a lot... Gary also had one of his friends to hang out with. Two is a lucky number? It's certainly convenient. Being alone is quite lonely and can make AX not fun, while having 3 or more people may start making people that are not used to socials rather uncomfortable.
-Was my sister cosplaying? Kind of. She was trying to base her dress off this random picture I found a long time ago (it's somewhere in one of my facebook album, the picture of a catgirl with purple hair kissing someone. Except that my sister didn't have the catears/tail, didn't have the purple hair and definately isn't kissing anyone.) Except her outfit and makeup made her kind of look gothic and she was kind of flustered by that, but I said it was ok since it was at AX and half the female population look gothic anyway, whether they actually are or just cosplaying.
Not that anyone would be interested in knowing, but I had a somewhat matching outfit with a black polo shirt that my sister/mom bought and said looked nice on me. :V and I wore slacks (as usual) with a Kagami hanging out of my pocket. Which, I thought, looked cool. What! I did!
...:V
Pictures to come when my sister takes them off her cell phone.
31.5.08
CHAAARRRGGEEEE
Just because I need a place to quotespam.
Thomas says:
ITS MIND GAMES
Thomas says:
AM I GOING TO CHARGE AT YOU
Thomas says:
OR AM I GOING TO SPEAR YOU
Akuun says:
uh
Akuun says:
you *always* charge
Thomas says:
... :(
This is referring to Alice in SWR btw.
Thomas says:
ITS MIND GAMES
Thomas says:
AM I GOING TO CHARGE AT YOU
Thomas says:
OR AM I GOING TO SPEAR YOU
Akuun says:
uh
Akuun says:
you *always* charge
Thomas says:
... :(
This is referring to Alice in SWR btw.
Rental Magica
An excellent series that is fitting for a variety of genre, whether you're interested in fantasy, magic, or action. Indeed, this not-well-renowned series is given less credit than what it deserves, similar to other series I've mentioned before, like Yume Tsukai. The series has an extraordinary amount of depth and detail in it, so much that it may get confusing at first, trying to read all the subtitles and translator notes during the first few episodes of the series. But the series is not all detail, and there are some pretty heated battle scenes for those who just don't care and want to see fighting and action going on. I probably can't say it's one of the best in fantasy/action/romance/comedy/whatever genre, but it certainly has a little of all and best of all, it makes sense. The series combines a whole plethora of different forms of magic, ranging from the western traditional magics to the eastern shrine type rituals. I could almost say that it's just a very well constructed anime combining Harry Potter, Touhou, Code Geass, Pokemon, a random ghost and a random Ofuda (paper magic) user together... but that sounds rather terrible, the series is actually much better than a collection of those things put all together.
The artwork is quite nice and comfortable. It's not rediculously moe as some of the series I've watched but its also cute enough to be attracted to the characters and not deem the fanservice as "unneeded" (not that fanservice is needed, but it's not annoying at the very least). There is also a good amount of male characters so that the series won't be completely directed as a harem type series, a good method to introduce female watchers since many girls automatically reject harem anime no matter how good it may be (for a reasonable excuse, its not deemed "harem" for no reason). Regardless of the character content, the story is very nice and in depth therefore anyone who's always criticized shows for their plot and detail would like this series quite a bit, I think.
The ending song is very catchy, and the chorus part of the opening song is pretty cool too.
In terms of the negatives, well, for the first portions of the series the series goes out of order, which is always a nuisance to me. After watch Touka Gettan where the ENTIRE SERIES was backwards I was no longer appreciative of WHATEVER reason a series would go out of order, whether it's symbolic or just because the creators thought it would be funny. However the latter half had the series finally going in chronological order and that was much more enjoyable. Also, there is one scene that they continously flash back to, which is understandable since its part of the story but after flashing back to the scene 4 times it gets old and annoying and makes it feel like a waste of time. :( Come on we want to watching fighting magicians in action, not the same childhood memory 4 times!!
But yes despite that Rental Magica is a good series, would highly recommend watching it.
The artwork is quite nice and comfortable. It's not rediculously moe as some of the series I've watched but its also cute enough to be attracted to the characters and not deem the fanservice as "unneeded" (not that fanservice is needed, but it's not annoying at the very least). There is also a good amount of male characters so that the series won't be completely directed as a harem type series, a good method to introduce female watchers since many girls automatically reject harem anime no matter how good it may be (for a reasonable excuse, its not deemed "harem" for no reason). Regardless of the character content, the story is very nice and in depth therefore anyone who's always criticized shows for their plot and detail would like this series quite a bit, I think.
The ending song is very catchy, and the chorus part of the opening song is pretty cool too.
In terms of the negatives, well, for the first portions of the series the series goes out of order, which is always a nuisance to me. After watch Touka Gettan where the ENTIRE SERIES was backwards I was no longer appreciative of WHATEVER reason a series would go out of order, whether it's symbolic or just because the creators thought it would be funny. However the latter half had the series finally going in chronological order and that was much more enjoyable. Also, there is one scene that they continously flash back to, which is understandable since its part of the story but after flashing back to the scene 4 times it gets old and annoying and makes it feel like a waste of time. :( Come on we want to watching fighting magicians in action, not the same childhood memory 4 times!!
But yes despite that Rental Magica is a good series, would highly recommend watching it.
26.5.08
Indiana Jones, Kimikiss, Scarlet Weather Rhapsody
Two quick short writeups on my opinions on these two visual works.
Indiana Jones was fun to watch, as I had expected. Unfortunately its plot was quite weak and the romance portion was lame, but the point of the show was to have Indy be awesome and have some comedic moments once in a while (the romance helps with that, admittedly). So, it doesn't really matter that the plotline sucked. Still, it would have been nice if they were more coherent with these things. Additionally, sometimes the characters like Indy mumbled and I couldn't figure out what they were saying; that's a bit annoying too.
I would also like to comment on the feasibility of surviving an atomic bomb while staying in a refrigerator, but when consulting a physics major he said it was narrowly possible. And since narrowly possible always means Indiana Jones can do it, I accept it as feasible and not impossible, like some things that are shown in anime. Everything Indiana Jones does is almost impossible but because there's a low chance of success he succeeds. (That's what heroes do, they turn 0.01% success into 100% success!) It was cool though, surviving an atomic blast in a refrigerator. :V
Kimikiss Pure Rouge was a random typical high school romance anime I happened to pick up. Nothing in it stands out in a particular, in fact it could be said as the most normal high school romance anime I've ever found. The art design isn't even that great. But I was quite attracted to the character personalities in the anime, which I found much more realistic (and less emo) than many other characters in romance and high school anime. For the most part most of the characters did not have me crying in agony and for those that did, it was only for a short while before they shaped up and I was like "huh, pretty smart". Unlike some anime where the protagonist never learns throughout the entire series (or takes the entire series to learn). So, I thought the characters were pretty good.
I really liked the ending to the first season of the anime, for whatever reason.
NOW I SHALL BREAK FROM MY CONTINUOUS ANIME WATCHING TO DO A WEEKS WORTH OF PRACTICE IN SWR. This game is IMMENSELY confusing, even more so than IaMP was. The graze system is slightly different in that you can graze in more directions, and you have to let go of the graze key each time in order to change direction. Grazing and using projectiles is ranked by these little orb things, and if you forget to let go of the key you'll use up all your orbs and be powerless, which proves to be a huge inconvenience.
There is only ONE melee button (therefore ONE close range button) and two projectile buttons. This wouldn't have been a problem except that the former character I used in IaMP, Alice, always had A as her long range and B as her short range SO I GET SO CONFUSED and keep on using the wrong button when I want to use melee. D:
THERE IS AN AWESOME CARD SYSTEM but it's going to take a hell of a long time to get used to. It's almost as if the game is a card game + fighting game in one, in that you can build your own "deck" of spellcards that you draw and depending on your deck you can affect the outcome of your power moves.
There's also some weather system but I haven't seen too much about that yet. So far it doesn't affect me too much, but I'm sure it will eventually... I just have to figure out what button does what first, then I'll work on more of the specific nifty details of this game...
Indiana Jones was fun to watch, as I had expected. Unfortunately its plot was quite weak and the romance portion was lame, but the point of the show was to have Indy be awesome and have some comedic moments once in a while (the romance helps with that, admittedly). So, it doesn't really matter that the plotline sucked. Still, it would have been nice if they were more coherent with these things. Additionally, sometimes the characters like Indy mumbled and I couldn't figure out what they were saying; that's a bit annoying too.
I would also like to comment on the feasibility of surviving an atomic bomb while staying in a refrigerator, but when consulting a physics major he said it was narrowly possible. And since narrowly possible always means Indiana Jones can do it, I accept it as feasible and not impossible, like some things that are shown in anime. Everything Indiana Jones does is almost impossible but because there's a low chance of success he succeeds. (That's what heroes do, they turn 0.01% success into 100% success!) It was cool though, surviving an atomic blast in a refrigerator. :V
Kimikiss Pure Rouge was a random typical high school romance anime I happened to pick up. Nothing in it stands out in a particular, in fact it could be said as the most normal high school romance anime I've ever found. The art design isn't even that great. But I was quite attracted to the character personalities in the anime, which I found much more realistic (and less emo) than many other characters in romance and high school anime. For the most part most of the characters did not have me crying in agony and for those that did, it was only for a short while before they shaped up and I was like "huh, pretty smart". Unlike some anime where the protagonist never learns throughout the entire series (or takes the entire series to learn). So, I thought the characters were pretty good.
I really liked the ending to the first season of the anime, for whatever reason.
NOW I SHALL BREAK FROM MY CONTINUOUS ANIME WATCHING TO DO A WEEKS WORTH OF PRACTICE IN SWR. This game is IMMENSELY confusing, even more so than IaMP was. The graze system is slightly different in that you can graze in more directions, and you have to let go of the graze key each time in order to change direction. Grazing and using projectiles is ranked by these little orb things, and if you forget to let go of the key you'll use up all your orbs and be powerless, which proves to be a huge inconvenience.
There is only ONE melee button (therefore ONE close range button) and two projectile buttons. This wouldn't have been a problem except that the former character I used in IaMP, Alice, always had A as her long range and B as her short range SO I GET SO CONFUSED and keep on using the wrong button when I want to use melee. D:
THERE IS AN AWESOME CARD SYSTEM but it's going to take a hell of a long time to get used to. It's almost as if the game is a card game + fighting game in one, in that you can build your own "deck" of spellcards that you draw and depending on your deck you can affect the outcome of your power moves.
There's also some weather system but I haven't seen too much about that yet. So far it doesn't affect me too much, but I'm sure it will eventually... I just have to figure out what button does what first, then I'll work on more of the specific nifty details of this game...
18.5.08
Hayate no Gotoku
40 EPISODES IN ABOUT TWO DAYS. EXCELLENT SERIES TO WASTE TIME ON. YES.
In terms of the quality of the series, it certainly qualifies as a comedy series. Similar to Lucky Star, it provides a whole plethora of anime and just general cultural references, so much that many people will probably miss most of them. (I myself am sure I've missed a ton of them) A lot of the time I figure they're pretty specific references, but there are even some references so common that people who haven't seen anything related to the reference would notice them (For example, I never saw the Matrix but the oh-so-cliche freezing gunfight was there for one scene or so). But nevertheless its amazing how much references they manage to put in, and that's part of what cracks me up. How can you not be amused at trap-Hayate dressed up as Belldandy claiming his name is Hermoine, then some other character making a crack joke asking if he can do magic afterwards? :V
It IS different from Lucky Star, however, in that you can't easily say "OH I CAN RELATE TO THAT" with this series. Obviously, since many people are not combat butlers that don't die even after many profuse injuries and does amazing superhuman stuff, its bound to be more of a nonsensical "haha funny but it will never happen in real life" type of anime. Nevertheless, very amusing. I'm sure my experience with the anime is only augmented because I recognize so much references that are noted throughout the anime, but I'm guessing it'll be a fairly adequate show to watch even if its just casual. If no one has anything else to do for an entire day but to watch anime. It's certainly good to have days like this, I tell you.
The character designs were not exactly KyoAni style, but were still pretty good. In many cases, the character personalities made the characters cute, especially since many of them were so intensely exaggerated. After watching the entire series, I'd have to say that honestly (as with most otakus I bet) Isumi the directionally impaired girl is of course the cutest, but certainly Nishisawa the food girl comes pretty close with her school outfit being more attractive than the one used at the school the main characters go to. Hinagaku also looks surprisingly moe in a Utena outfit, though her usual style sucks in terms of clothes. I am sort of wondering why Nishisawa knew Hinagaku and Wataru but then again asking the story for plot is probably a bit too much. (Although with both being commoners I think its not that out of the ordinary, and amazingly enough it leaves MORE chances for plot development for a second season. It's like Hayate can't end...):V
THE MUSIC: I'VE DOES THEIR MUSIC. KOTOKO DOES THE OP SONGS. ENOUGH SAID.
Lun Lun Lun~
In terms of the quality of the series, it certainly qualifies as a comedy series. Similar to Lucky Star, it provides a whole plethora of anime and just general cultural references, so much that many people will probably miss most of them. (I myself am sure I've missed a ton of them) A lot of the time I figure they're pretty specific references, but there are even some references so common that people who haven't seen anything related to the reference would notice them (For example, I never saw the Matrix but the oh-so-cliche freezing gunfight was there for one scene or so). But nevertheless its amazing how much references they manage to put in, and that's part of what cracks me up. How can you not be amused at trap-Hayate dressed up as Belldandy claiming his name is Hermoine, then some other character making a crack joke asking if he can do magic afterwards? :V
It IS different from Lucky Star, however, in that you can't easily say "OH I CAN RELATE TO THAT" with this series. Obviously, since many people are not combat butlers that don't die even after many profuse injuries and does amazing superhuman stuff, its bound to be more of a nonsensical "haha funny but it will never happen in real life" type of anime. Nevertheless, very amusing. I'm sure my experience with the anime is only augmented because I recognize so much references that are noted throughout the anime, but I'm guessing it'll be a fairly adequate show to watch even if its just casual. If no one has anything else to do for an entire day but to watch anime. It's certainly good to have days like this, I tell you.
The character designs were not exactly KyoAni style, but were still pretty good. In many cases, the character personalities made the characters cute, especially since many of them were so intensely exaggerated. After watching the entire series, I'd have to say that honestly (as with most otakus I bet) Isumi the directionally impaired girl is of course the cutest, but certainly Nishisawa the food girl comes pretty close with her school outfit being more attractive than the one used at the school the main characters go to. Hinagaku also looks surprisingly moe in a Utena outfit, though her usual style sucks in terms of clothes. I am sort of wondering why Nishisawa knew Hinagaku and Wataru but then again asking the story for plot is probably a bit too much. (Although with both being commoners I think its not that out of the ordinary, and amazingly enough it leaves MORE chances for plot development for a second season. It's like Hayate can't end...):V
THE MUSIC: I'VE DOES THEIR MUSIC. KOTOKO DOES THE OP SONGS. ENOUGH SAID.
Lun Lun Lun~
16.5.08
H20: Footprints in the Sand
MY SUMMER ANIME SPLURGE HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN!!!
(I realize I should be writing about Clannad first since it was a great series and deserves to have a review written about it but I am lazy atm so JUST WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T and suffice to say that it was so good it made me like a tsundere as my favorite character.)
SO what is H2O: Footprints in the Sand? It is, in a more rash term, another one of those visual novel-themed animes. However, despite some mediocrity and cliche themes and characters, it has its merits. While I personally think the character personalities are a bit too overused and, at times, unrealistic, the character designs and seemingly unique plot makes up for it. I like the plot so far in that it's fairly non-predictable by my standards, which is a big plus considering many of the characters display very cliche personalities and actions. I always enjoy a scene that I wasn't expecting more than one where I can literally say what the character is going to say next.
In terms of character, I mention that they are cliche but for this particular anime I like the main boy protagonist quite a bit. He starts off being blind and is suddenly able to see again, which is not a character trait you see very often; in addition, he's a soft-spoken, typical nice guy except he still has his cheekiness in him so he's not a sucker when stupid and funny events come to him. But most importantly, he doesn't seem to emo (at least not yet) and devote himself to too many characters at once. He's a nice guy to all girls, like every other male protagonist in this type of genre, but he really emits a "I'm just a friend" type feel, not a player that tries to go after every girl while somehow not realizing it.
While many of the characters are somewhat cliche in personality, the major reason I kept up with the series is I find it to have beautiful character designs. Not as good as KyoAni works, but attractive enough to make me want to continue the series even when characters say cheesey lines. The two blond hair girls in particular are so very cute, and the one with longer wavey hair is so cute it makes me feel sorry for all she has to go through even though she brought it on her self. :(
Oh and the music for this series is very nice. :D
H2O makes the series sound so scientific, when it obviously isn't. In fact, it has more religious themes than science. :V
(I realize I should be writing about Clannad first since it was a great series and deserves to have a review written about it but I am lazy atm so JUST WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T and suffice to say that it was so good it made me like a tsundere as my favorite character.)
SO what is H2O: Footprints in the Sand? It is, in a more rash term, another one of those visual novel-themed animes. However, despite some mediocrity and cliche themes and characters, it has its merits. While I personally think the character personalities are a bit too overused and, at times, unrealistic, the character designs and seemingly unique plot makes up for it. I like the plot so far in that it's fairly non-predictable by my standards, which is a big plus considering many of the characters display very cliche personalities and actions. I always enjoy a scene that I wasn't expecting more than one where I can literally say what the character is going to say next.
In terms of character, I mention that they are cliche but for this particular anime I like the main boy protagonist quite a bit. He starts off being blind and is suddenly able to see again, which is not a character trait you see very often; in addition, he's a soft-spoken, typical nice guy except he still has his cheekiness in him so he's not a sucker when stupid and funny events come to him. But most importantly, he doesn't seem to emo (at least not yet) and devote himself to too many characters at once. He's a nice guy to all girls, like every other male protagonist in this type of genre, but he really emits a "I'm just a friend" type feel, not a player that tries to go after every girl while somehow not realizing it.
While many of the characters are somewhat cliche in personality, the major reason I kept up with the series is I find it to have beautiful character designs. Not as good as KyoAni works, but attractive enough to make me want to continue the series even when characters say cheesey lines. The two blond hair girls in particular are so very cute, and the one with longer wavey hair is so cute it makes me feel sorry for all she has to go through even though she brought it on her self. :(
Oh and the music for this series is very nice. :D
H2O makes the series sound so scientific, when it obviously isn't. In fact, it has more religious themes than science. :V
9.5.08
Anime Downloads...?
http://zepy.momotato.com/2008/05/09/police-arrest-3-people-that-shared-anime-on-share/
Similar to what the guy said in the beginning, at first I thought this wouldn't matter much but after reading the article I'd have to say, "Interesting. Let's see what happens."
Similar to what the guy said in the beginning, at first I thought this wouldn't matter much but after reading the article I'd have to say, "Interesting. Let's see what happens."
8.5.08
Magical Cell Plasma B-chan!
WARNING
THE FOLLOWING BLOG POST IS FOR SELF-STUDY PURPOSES ONLY. ANYONE ELSE READING THIS POST MAY SUFFER BOUTS OF "OMG WTF HAVE I JUST READ" AND "I FEEL LIKE SUCH A GEEK NOW".
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
After much contemplation on how the immune system and all its complexity can be "moefied" I finally figured out a perfect representation of the immune system, placed into a simple magical girl scenario. After all, you have the bad guys and you have the heroes, what better situation can they be in? Sure we can have mech and sentai (I think that's what it was? transforming superheroes) but you know those two aren't very moe. :( Therefore Magical Girl seems to fit the theme quite well.
The Introduction
A young middle school girl named Bee. Her full name is Rinpakyuu Bee (From what I could get, Rinpakyuu is japanese for "lymphocyte") and lives in a fairly normal and peaceful world that is seemingly without danger. She has orange, semi-long hair that is only slightly wavey at the beginning but curls inwards it gets lengthier. She has small white ribbons which tie around the left side of her bangs. Her schhol outfit is generally a bright cheerful yellow with a white skirt and a red bow in the center. Her eyes are large, deep brown, and give off a sort of shy, silent-girl type appearance. In fact, she IS mostly a shy, silent girl that doesn't talk a lot even amongst friends and is frequently a victim of blushing to the slightest thing embarassing. Nevertheless she is very friendly and always is willing to help out any way she can.
MAIN CHARACTER DESCRIPTION ASIDE (which has NOTHING to do with immunology but EVERYTHING to do with moeness) one day Bee-chan, while walking home from school, had to make a detour due to construction. She didn't think too much of it, since it seems like it would only lengthen her trip home by a short amount, but what she encountered drastically changed the rest of her life...
It was then she had seen, for the first time, an "Infection". There were small, sphericallike objects everywhere that emitted a field of negative energy around the area. The spherical objects attached themselves to other beings and began sucking the life force out of those within proximity. Then, after they had obtained enough energy, they divided, and multiplied... each new division latching onto a host, whether it be the same host as before or a new one, to absorb more life energy and continue dividing. Naturally, Bee-chan was terrified and didn't know what to do. Slowly, she backed away and tried to run, but saw that they had multiplied so much in the short time she was staring that they had surrounded her. They slowly began to enclose her when...
There was a glow of energy within her. Three colors glowed from the center of her chest. She didn't know what was going on, but slowly, she began to feel less terrified and more calm, letting the new, mysterious energy take over her. One of the spherical objects lunged but Bee-chan merely caught it within her hands and, through some process she did not know, absorbed and disintegrated the creature. At that point all the spherical objects stopped advancing towards her, as if they had sensed a powerful force being released...
"Kitaaaaaaa!!" From the air emerged a new figure, her loud voice snapping Bee-chan back into consciousness. Frantically she moved aside from the new arriving individual, who crashed straight into the floor beside her. Slowly, she got up; she was a person about the same height and age as she was, only with an unusual outfit that had what appeared to be dragonfly wings on the back of her, as if she were some sort of faerie. The girl looked at her.
"So, you're the one huh?"
"???" Bee-chan looked at her with confusion and anxiety. The girl sighed.
"An immature one, you must be. Sigh, those are always hard to deal with at first, lack of exposure and all." She turned, brushed herself, then smiled. "Hiya, just call me T-chan! I'm going to be your Helper from now on!"
Bee-chan looked on, still confused. "Helper?"
Before T-chan could explain, there negative energy force suddenly felt stronger and more powerful than before. They looked around and found that they were now completely engulfed within the spherical monsters...
"Ah, these cocci are multiplying like mad... Here I'll explain later, let's first clean this place up! Here, hold out your MHC."
"...my what?" But before she can understand what was going on, she involuntarily held out her hand, which began emitting a bright yellow glow. In the center of her hand appeared to be a piece of the cocci that had previously attacked her.
"Excellent. TCR to MHC response--" T-chan held out her hand and clasped it with Bee-chan's hand-- "Cytokine Release--" Many bright and sparkly starlike objects bursted out of T-chan and began swirling around the two girls "--ACTIVATION!!"
Transformation Scene. First the obligatory nakedness where here clothes and ribbon disappear. Her hair lengthens until it reaches her hips, then splits into two and braids themselves automatically, until she has two very long braids hanging down the back of her head. The hair then changes its color from orange to light blue. She is given a purple outfit that looks something like a dress with accessories like ribbons and Y shaped clips, five of the clips being aligned perfectly at the rim of her dress (which extends just below her knee) in a ring shaped manner. then gloves and shoes appear and finally she opens her eyes, which have now changed color to a more firey type orange and... she makes some pose. Which is not too cheesey but not just standing there either. Use your imagination.
A second after realize she has transformed, she panicks frantically not knowing what in the world had just happened to her. T-chan, however, knows exactly what to do.
"Oi, just listen to me, here! Just repeat everything I say and you'll do fine!"
"Huh??? Oh... uh okay!" Bee-chan stammered.
"So you're in your M-mode, perfect! First off, Antibody Dispersion!!"
"Antibody Dispersion!!" Immediately a wide array of rings flew out of Bee-chan and began sticking to the cocci surrounding them. The cocci seemed to make some moaning noise as if they were in pain.
"Agglutinate!!" T-chan shouted.
"AGGLUTINAAATEEE!!" Bee-chan repeated. The cocci were then pulled together, away from the many hosts they were sucking from, into one very large sphere of cocci, held together tightly by the objects Bee-chan had dispersed earlier.
"Now, finally... Complement System..."
"Complement System..."
"INITIATE!!!"
"INITIATE!!!"
Suddenly as if they were appearing out of nowhere, objects of varying sizes and sorts began clumping onto the cocci. When a number of them had accumulated on top of one, the cocci would burst and disintegrate.
"There, the Membrane Attack Complex should finish them off..."
Indeed within a short while, the explosions accumulated exponentially until the whole large sphere of cocci seemed to explode at once, emitting a bright light and... after the light faded, everything returned to normal.
Except for the rest of Bee-chan's life, of course.
THE CAST
Bee-Chan and T-chan were pretty much introduced in the introduction. Consequently Bee-chan in her magical girl phase is a plasma cell, while in her dormant phase she is (now) a memory cell.
T-chan has a twin brother called T-kun. T-kun (representing a cytotoxic T cell) is not a helper and actually goes and kills hosts which have been infected. Bee-chan was not very happy when she first found out about T-kun's job, but realizes soon afterwards that it was a necessary thing he has to do.
T-chan and T-kun's actual names (and the names they use when they are in "human" form) is Tomoyo and Tomoya.
There is another "lead handsome guy" character that comes in that represents all forms of phagocytes in general. He helps Bee-chan fight off the evil microbes that come and invade their planet. He initially starts out with one form, the "Neutrophil" form, which is a general form for killing microbes. He gains more forms later ("Eosinophil", "Basophil", "Natural Killer"), each suited differently depending on who he is fighting. For example, "Natural Killer" form helps out T-kun in tough times where there are many infected hosts, while "Basophil" form helps close off an area in the city (to prevent further people from accidentally coming in) and creates a generally more "heated" environment which slows down the microbe invasion.
Bee-chan has several forms as well. The forms are known as "Class M", "Class A", "Class E", "Class D", and "Class G". Similar to the previous character mentioned, each class varies in power and effectiveness depending on who Bee-chan is fighting and where she is. For example Class A would be more effective in sea-type battles since Class A allows her to be more movable in water, while Class E helps against very large opponents (ones that would, in this world, rank at about the size of a skyscraper). Her most powerful form is Class G.
Oh, and each time she is in a new class, she has a different outfit as well.
OTHER MISC
Many of her adventures start off simple enough, just to introduce the characters and letting Bee-chan adapt to her new lifestyle. However, things get tricky fast when she has to combat various organisms with basis off of viruses and parasitic eukaryotes. Her opponents get tougher and tougher when she encounters those who can become resistant to some of her antibodies, those who can "cloak", and those who incapacitate T-chan using toxic shock and HIV infections. However ultimately in the end she finds that she must combat what seems like herself, after suffering through a molecular mimicry battle and inducing an autoimmune disorder (ie. possibly emo phase)... will she make it through?
EXTRA
There would probably be doujin of Bee-chan and Monoclonal Antibodies. Those damn tumor cells. :V
THE FOLLOWING BLOG POST IS FOR SELF-STUDY PURPOSES ONLY. ANYONE ELSE READING THIS POST MAY SUFFER BOUTS OF "OMG WTF HAVE I JUST READ" AND "I FEEL LIKE SUCH A GEEK NOW".
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
After much contemplation on how the immune system and all its complexity can be "moefied" I finally figured out a perfect representation of the immune system, placed into a simple magical girl scenario. After all, you have the bad guys and you have the heroes, what better situation can they be in? Sure we can have mech and sentai (I think that's what it was? transforming superheroes) but you know those two aren't very moe. :( Therefore Magical Girl seems to fit the theme quite well.
The Introduction
A young middle school girl named Bee. Her full name is Rinpakyuu Bee (From what I could get, Rinpakyuu is japanese for "lymphocyte") and lives in a fairly normal and peaceful world that is seemingly without danger. She has orange, semi-long hair that is only slightly wavey at the beginning but curls inwards it gets lengthier. She has small white ribbons which tie around the left side of her bangs. Her schhol outfit is generally a bright cheerful yellow with a white skirt and a red bow in the center. Her eyes are large, deep brown, and give off a sort of shy, silent-girl type appearance. In fact, she IS mostly a shy, silent girl that doesn't talk a lot even amongst friends and is frequently a victim of blushing to the slightest thing embarassing. Nevertheless she is very friendly and always is willing to help out any way she can.
MAIN CHARACTER DESCRIPTION ASIDE (which has NOTHING to do with immunology but EVERYTHING to do with moeness) one day Bee-chan, while walking home from school, had to make a detour due to construction. She didn't think too much of it, since it seems like it would only lengthen her trip home by a short amount, but what she encountered drastically changed the rest of her life...
It was then she had seen, for the first time, an "Infection". There were small, sphericallike objects everywhere that emitted a field of negative energy around the area. The spherical objects attached themselves to other beings and began sucking the life force out of those within proximity. Then, after they had obtained enough energy, they divided, and multiplied... each new division latching onto a host, whether it be the same host as before or a new one, to absorb more life energy and continue dividing. Naturally, Bee-chan was terrified and didn't know what to do. Slowly, she backed away and tried to run, but saw that they had multiplied so much in the short time she was staring that they had surrounded her. They slowly began to enclose her when...
There was a glow of energy within her. Three colors glowed from the center of her chest. She didn't know what was going on, but slowly, she began to feel less terrified and more calm, letting the new, mysterious energy take over her. One of the spherical objects lunged but Bee-chan merely caught it within her hands and, through some process she did not know, absorbed and disintegrated the creature. At that point all the spherical objects stopped advancing towards her, as if they had sensed a powerful force being released...
"Kitaaaaaaa!!" From the air emerged a new figure, her loud voice snapping Bee-chan back into consciousness. Frantically she moved aside from the new arriving individual, who crashed straight into the floor beside her. Slowly, she got up; she was a person about the same height and age as she was, only with an unusual outfit that had what appeared to be dragonfly wings on the back of her, as if she were some sort of faerie. The girl looked at her.
"So, you're the one huh?"
"???" Bee-chan looked at her with confusion and anxiety. The girl sighed.
"An immature one, you must be. Sigh, those are always hard to deal with at first, lack of exposure and all." She turned, brushed herself, then smiled. "Hiya, just call me T-chan! I'm going to be your Helper from now on!"
Bee-chan looked on, still confused. "Helper?"
Before T-chan could explain, there negative energy force suddenly felt stronger and more powerful than before. They looked around and found that they were now completely engulfed within the spherical monsters...
"Ah, these cocci are multiplying like mad... Here I'll explain later, let's first clean this place up! Here, hold out your MHC."
"...my what?" But before she can understand what was going on, she involuntarily held out her hand, which began emitting a bright yellow glow. In the center of her hand appeared to be a piece of the cocci that had previously attacked her.
"Excellent. TCR to MHC response--" T-chan held out her hand and clasped it with Bee-chan's hand-- "Cytokine Release--" Many bright and sparkly starlike objects bursted out of T-chan and began swirling around the two girls "--ACTIVATION!!"
Transformation Scene. First the obligatory nakedness where here clothes and ribbon disappear. Her hair lengthens until it reaches her hips, then splits into two and braids themselves automatically, until she has two very long braids hanging down the back of her head. The hair then changes its color from orange to light blue. She is given a purple outfit that looks something like a dress with accessories like ribbons and Y shaped clips, five of the clips being aligned perfectly at the rim of her dress (which extends just below her knee) in a ring shaped manner. then gloves and shoes appear and finally she opens her eyes, which have now changed color to a more firey type orange and... she makes some pose. Which is not too cheesey but not just standing there either. Use your imagination.
A second after realize she has transformed, she panicks frantically not knowing what in the world had just happened to her. T-chan, however, knows exactly what to do.
"Oi, just listen to me, here! Just repeat everything I say and you'll do fine!"
"Huh??? Oh... uh okay!" Bee-chan stammered.
"So you're in your M-mode, perfect! First off, Antibody Dispersion!!"
"Antibody Dispersion!!" Immediately a wide array of rings flew out of Bee-chan and began sticking to the cocci surrounding them. The cocci seemed to make some moaning noise as if they were in pain.
"Agglutinate!!" T-chan shouted.
"AGGLUTINAAATEEE!!" Bee-chan repeated. The cocci were then pulled together, away from the many hosts they were sucking from, into one very large sphere of cocci, held together tightly by the objects Bee-chan had dispersed earlier.
"Now, finally... Complement System..."
"Complement System..."
"INITIATE!!!"
"INITIATE!!!"
Suddenly as if they were appearing out of nowhere, objects of varying sizes and sorts began clumping onto the cocci. When a number of them had accumulated on top of one, the cocci would burst and disintegrate.
"There, the Membrane Attack Complex should finish them off..."
Indeed within a short while, the explosions accumulated exponentially until the whole large sphere of cocci seemed to explode at once, emitting a bright light and... after the light faded, everything returned to normal.
Except for the rest of Bee-chan's life, of course.
THE CAST
Bee-Chan and T-chan were pretty much introduced in the introduction. Consequently Bee-chan in her magical girl phase is a plasma cell, while in her dormant phase she is (now) a memory cell.
T-chan has a twin brother called T-kun. T-kun (representing a cytotoxic T cell) is not a helper and actually goes and kills hosts which have been infected. Bee-chan was not very happy when she first found out about T-kun's job, but realizes soon afterwards that it was a necessary thing he has to do.
T-chan and T-kun's actual names (and the names they use when they are in "human" form) is Tomoyo and Tomoya.
There is another "lead handsome guy" character that comes in that represents all forms of phagocytes in general. He helps Bee-chan fight off the evil microbes that come and invade their planet. He initially starts out with one form, the "Neutrophil" form, which is a general form for killing microbes. He gains more forms later ("Eosinophil", "Basophil", "Natural Killer"), each suited differently depending on who he is fighting. For example, "Natural Killer" form helps out T-kun in tough times where there are many infected hosts, while "Basophil" form helps close off an area in the city (to prevent further people from accidentally coming in) and creates a generally more "heated" environment which slows down the microbe invasion.
Bee-chan has several forms as well. The forms are known as "Class M", "Class A", "Class E", "Class D", and "Class G". Similar to the previous character mentioned, each class varies in power and effectiveness depending on who Bee-chan is fighting and where she is. For example Class A would be more effective in sea-type battles since Class A allows her to be more movable in water, while Class E helps against very large opponents (ones that would, in this world, rank at about the size of a skyscraper). Her most powerful form is Class G.
Oh, and each time she is in a new class, she has a different outfit as well.
OTHER MISC
Many of her adventures start off simple enough, just to introduce the characters and letting Bee-chan adapt to her new lifestyle. However, things get tricky fast when she has to combat various organisms with basis off of viruses and parasitic eukaryotes. Her opponents get tougher and tougher when she encounters those who can become resistant to some of her antibodies, those who can "cloak", and those who incapacitate T-chan using toxic shock and HIV infections. However ultimately in the end she finds that she must combat what seems like herself, after suffering through a molecular mimicry battle and inducing an autoimmune disorder (ie. possibly emo phase)... will she make it through?
EXTRA
There would probably be doujin of Bee-chan and Monoclonal Antibodies. Those damn tumor cells. :V
1.5.08
OH MY GRANDMA
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-05-01/right-stuf-licenses-all-three-aria-tv-seasons-and-video
DEKAI SUGOI!!!
DEKAI SUGOI!!!
23.4.08
MOEMONS?!?
because my blog has lately been full of emo and stupid self-talk that many people wouldn't care about and much less read about, I now present to you something that people still won't care about but at least is remarkably more amusing: MOEMON
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FEZG8h6MQo
AND THE DANGO MOEMON SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCKE6-u-kZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FEZG8h6MQo
AND THE DANGO MOEMON SONG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCKE6-u-kZc
21.4.08
Scholarships and Idleness
One of the most remarkably irking qualities humans sometimes have is the fact that they feel like they have nothing to do when there is obviously something to do. I on many occasions have reprimanded people on this yet I feel extremely frustrated that it has happened many times to myself as well, classifying me well as a hypocrite for telling others to fight against idleness when it's happening to me every so often. Most recently there had been a troubled feeling about how I seemed to have nothing to do, even though I did have things to do and they were planned out accordingly so I didn't have too much work to do. But just today it had turned out that I had forgotten something incredibly important, something that wasn't even that difficult to do had I thought of it earlier, and that was turning in scholarship applications.
It had occurred to me when a fellow undergraduate working in my lab had said she got accepted to a scholarship and I congradulated her. But then I realized that I had forgotten all about scholarships since the last time I sent applications in, which was last semester. This was an incredible fault on my behalf since many of my applications can simply be copied and given in as a new application. But this time I forgot, and a lot of potential was lost immediately. This is an immensely grave mistake, yet also a very good lesson to myself how foolish and immature I had been. I had thought that I had all things planned out, but in reality I was only looking at things inside school, taking less into account my labwork (since I had less proposals to write about) and other administrative issues. I had thought that in terms of administrative issues I had been fairly on top of things, scheduling my classes very early and getting all the stuff done with my advisors as soon as possible. But obviously that proved to be wrong.
Regardless about how much I distress about it, I can't do anything about it now. I have to learn from my mistakes and make sure they don't happen ever again (or at least happen less often), therefore I will be sure to get all things dealt with, even if they are many months ahead of time. If I don't have the deadline for something yet, I will make a preliminary deadline to check when the time comes that there should be a deadline, even if I need my cell phone to remind me.
I will hope this won't happen again, because the feeling of failure, though needed, is never comfortable.
It had occurred to me when a fellow undergraduate working in my lab had said she got accepted to a scholarship and I congradulated her. But then I realized that I had forgotten all about scholarships since the last time I sent applications in, which was last semester. This was an incredible fault on my behalf since many of my applications can simply be copied and given in as a new application. But this time I forgot, and a lot of potential was lost immediately. This is an immensely grave mistake, yet also a very good lesson to myself how foolish and immature I had been. I had thought that I had all things planned out, but in reality I was only looking at things inside school, taking less into account my labwork (since I had less proposals to write about) and other administrative issues. I had thought that in terms of administrative issues I had been fairly on top of things, scheduling my classes very early and getting all the stuff done with my advisors as soon as possible. But obviously that proved to be wrong.
Regardless about how much I distress about it, I can't do anything about it now. I have to learn from my mistakes and make sure they don't happen ever again (or at least happen less often), therefore I will be sure to get all things dealt with, even if they are many months ahead of time. If I don't have the deadline for something yet, I will make a preliminary deadline to check when the time comes that there should be a deadline, even if I need my cell phone to remind me.
I will hope this won't happen again, because the feeling of failure, though needed, is never comfortable.
12.4.08
Morbidity.
Generally I should be doing my lab report which is what I had planned, but due to my illness I'm going to delay that. One may be wondering why I can't do my lab report if I'm here writing in my blog, but due to previous experience (for example, this afternoon) I found that when I'm doing academic work which usually requires thinking, I'll be exerting a lot of energy and this severely degrades my condition when I'm sick. If I do something that doesn't require that much thinking and is just relaxing (maybe like watch Aria, if I had Aria on this computer...) I don't think it will stress me out as much which would be significantly better so I can recover from my condition faster.
On a positive note I didn't procrastinate on my lab report and have most of it (I think) finished. I'm just worried I won't have as much time to double check over it before I have to turn it in.
In regards to anime, I completely finished Clannad in one weekend. This requires a blog writeup since it was obviously good, but that will have to come later because that also requires quite a bit of thinking and energy exertion. Someone remind me to do that later. And to also put up a writeup on the ONE visual novel too.
I have a strange suspicion that my illnesses and my microbiology class are conspiring together. A few weeks ago when our teacher started talking about Viruses I had an outbreak of Herpes virus, which I hadn't had for a while. (Herpes virus is a latent virus that comes back every so often in a person who has it, for those who don't know, use wiki) And now when my teacher is starting her lecture on pathogens and immunology, I get sick again. Which I can complain is unfair because I was only sick 3 months ago (and I think its the exact same illness too, a common cold -_-;; ) but on top of that I get allergies and the lovely Santa Ana winds coming by to make me feel more miserable than I already am. Well, on the positive side I don't have a fever.
Yet. >.> <.<
On a positive note I didn't procrastinate on my lab report and have most of it (I think) finished. I'm just worried I won't have as much time to double check over it before I have to turn it in.
In regards to anime, I completely finished Clannad in one weekend. This requires a blog writeup since it was obviously good, but that will have to come later because that also requires quite a bit of thinking and energy exertion. Someone remind me to do that later. And to also put up a writeup on the ONE visual novel too.
I have a strange suspicion that my illnesses and my microbiology class are conspiring together. A few weeks ago when our teacher started talking about Viruses I had an outbreak of Herpes virus, which I hadn't had for a while. (Herpes virus is a latent virus that comes back every so often in a person who has it, for those who don't know, use wiki) And now when my teacher is starting her lecture on pathogens and immunology, I get sick again. Which I can complain is unfair because I was only sick 3 months ago (and I think its the exact same illness too, a common cold -_-;; ) but on top of that I get allergies and the lovely Santa Ana winds coming by to make me feel more miserable than I already am. Well, on the positive side I don't have a fever.
Yet. >.> <.<
6.4.08
MUSIC QUIZ THINGY
With help from ChikoSai because as sad as it sounds I have no idea what 3/4ths of the titles on my playlist mean. Probably the reason why I never did it earlier.
RULES:
1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, ETC on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.
5. Put this on your journal.
1. If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say?
Kimi ga Matteiru Kara
(I'm still here waiting for you)
[Gackt]
If anything probably just waiting for someone to finish so we can leave already.
2. How would you describe yourself?
Hitorigoto
(Monologue)
[KOTOKO]
...uh, I'll interpret this as being somewhat of a loner. Which is partly true.
3. What do you like in a girl?
Duran Shoukan
(Summoning of Duran)
[Kajiura Yuki, Mai Hime OST]
...ok... the most farfetched interpretation I can think of this is tsundere which is WRONG... well maybe not quite but certainly not Duran.
4. How do you feel today?
Monochrome Sekai
(Monochrome World)
[Shimotsuki Haruka]
I don't see the world in gray! ...Do I? ...It's cloudy today.
5. What is your life's purpose?
Rhythm Emotion
[Endless Waltz]
Not quite. In a most farfetched idea it could signify adding a sort of stability to complex human behavior which could possibly signify the desire to overcome one's faults to become someone greater. Or that I live for techno.
I think its the former.
6. What is your motto?
Snow Angel
[KOTOKO]
HAHAHA THIS MAKES NO SENSE BUT IT'S ENTERTAINING.
7. What do your friends think of you?
Heart Warm
[Spiral OST]
ROTFL.
8. What do you think of your parents?
Kimi yo, Utsukushii Kaze ni Nare
(Feeling the beautiful wind with you)
[KOTOKO]
Well, we DO go on vacations a lot. Possibly symbolic about the enjoyment of spending time with my family.
9. What do you think about very often?
Last Song
[Gackt]
Because its better than the current song.
10. What is 2 + 2?
Happy Material
[Various Artists, Negima anime]
...at least its school related? Happy math?
11. What do you think of your best friend?
Michishirube
(Guidance? or something like that)
[Yuumao]
Umm... well I don't have one type of best friend anyway so... I guess I'm a good guider? or I get guided by my friend? I think the former would apply more.
12. What do you think of the person you like?
Kagerou
(Dragonfly, or Heat Haze)
[Various Artists]
:V Heat maybe more appropriate. Analogy for "hot?" I don't like "hot" girls though...
13. What is your life story?
Can you feel crying alone?
[tiaraway]
That sounds remarkably emo.
14. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Neat Sister
[Rozen Maiden OST]
...WHAT.
15. What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Ashi Ato
(Footprints)
[KOTOKO]
Because the foot is the most attractive part of the body. For more symbolic meaning, Footprints are like imprints in the sand which can interpret to having fond fading memories which would mean I would think she'd be memorable.
16. What will you dance to at your wedding?
Chiisana Shiawase
( A Small Happiness)
[Kajiura Yuki, Mai Hime OST]
Not a bad song actually, for a wedding.
17. What will they play at your funeral?
Fusion Star
[KOTOKO]
An excellent way to end my life. Like the Big bang, only opposite.
18. What is your hobby/interest?
Yamiyo no Prologue
(Prologue to a Dark Night)
[Kajiura Yuki]
I am secretly a dark and evil person. Actually, some people may agree with this.
19. What is your biggest fear?
Hua Duo Kai Hao Le
(The flowers have finished blooming)
[S.H.E.]
Symbolic of the end of life? Or the end of the "blooming" period of life, aka getting old. Not a bad fear to have.
20. What is your biggest secret?
Solitary
[Gackt]
...I don't think its that big of a secret that I'm sort of a loner.
21. What do you think of your friends?
Kirameki no Kanata he
(That Sparkle on the other side)
[Miyu Matsuki]
Awwww... how cute... Sounds very Aria-ish.
RULES:
1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, ETC on Shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Put any comments in brackets after the song name.
5. Put this on your journal.
1. If someone says, "Is this okay?" You say?
Kimi ga Matteiru Kara
(I'm still here waiting for you)
[Gackt]
If anything probably just waiting for someone to finish so we can leave already.
2. How would you describe yourself?
Hitorigoto
(Monologue)
[KOTOKO]
...uh, I'll interpret this as being somewhat of a loner. Which is partly true.
3. What do you like in a girl?
Duran Shoukan
(Summoning of Duran)
[Kajiura Yuki, Mai Hime OST]
...ok... the most farfetched interpretation I can think of this is tsundere which is WRONG... well maybe not quite but certainly not Duran.
4. How do you feel today?
Monochrome Sekai
(Monochrome World)
[Shimotsuki Haruka]
I don't see the world in gray! ...Do I? ...It's cloudy today.
5. What is your life's purpose?
Rhythm Emotion
[Endless Waltz]
Not quite. In a most farfetched idea it could signify adding a sort of stability to complex human behavior which could possibly signify the desire to overcome one's faults to become someone greater. Or that I live for techno.
I think its the former.
6. What is your motto?
Snow Angel
[KOTOKO]
HAHAHA THIS MAKES NO SENSE BUT IT'S ENTERTAINING.
7. What do your friends think of you?
Heart Warm
[Spiral OST]
ROTFL.
8. What do you think of your parents?
Kimi yo, Utsukushii Kaze ni Nare
(Feeling the beautiful wind with you)
[KOTOKO]
Well, we DO go on vacations a lot. Possibly symbolic about the enjoyment of spending time with my family.
9. What do you think about very often?
Last Song
[Gackt]
Because its better than the current song.
10. What is 2 + 2?
Happy Material
[Various Artists, Negima anime]
...at least its school related? Happy math?
11. What do you think of your best friend?
Michishirube
(Guidance? or something like that)
[Yuumao]
Umm... well I don't have one type of best friend anyway so... I guess I'm a good guider? or I get guided by my friend? I think the former would apply more.
12. What do you think of the person you like?
Kagerou
(Dragonfly, or Heat Haze)
[Various Artists]
:V Heat maybe more appropriate. Analogy for "hot?" I don't like "hot" girls though...
13. What is your life story?
Can you feel crying alone?
[tiaraway]
That sounds remarkably emo.
14. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Neat Sister
[Rozen Maiden OST]
...WHAT.
15. What do you think of when you see the person you like?
Ashi Ato
(Footprints)
[KOTOKO]
Because the foot is the most attractive part of the body. For more symbolic meaning, Footprints are like imprints in the sand which can interpret to having fond fading memories which would mean I would think she'd be memorable.
16. What will you dance to at your wedding?
Chiisana Shiawase
( A Small Happiness)
[Kajiura Yuki, Mai Hime OST]
Not a bad song actually, for a wedding.
17. What will they play at your funeral?
Fusion Star
[KOTOKO]
An excellent way to end my life. Like the Big bang, only opposite.
18. What is your hobby/interest?
Yamiyo no Prologue
(Prologue to a Dark Night)
[Kajiura Yuki]
I am secretly a dark and evil person. Actually, some people may agree with this.
19. What is your biggest fear?
Hua Duo Kai Hao Le
(The flowers have finished blooming)
[S.H.E.]
Symbolic of the end of life? Or the end of the "blooming" period of life, aka getting old. Not a bad fear to have.
20. What is your biggest secret?
Solitary
[Gackt]
...I don't think its that big of a secret that I'm sort of a loner.
21. What do you think of your friends?
Kirameki no Kanata he
(That Sparkle on the other side)
[Miyu Matsuki]
Awwww... how cute... Sounds very Aria-ish.
19.3.08
UNLIMITED BOX WORKS
The Mathematical Theoretical Version (the one I made up):
I am the edge of my shape.
Squared is my face and cubed is my volume.
I have proved over a thousand theorems.
Variable to rational,
Variable to imaginary,
These polygons hold many numbers,
Yet these polygons will remained unsolved.
So, as I calculate,
UNLIMITED BOX WORKS!
The Applicable Practical Version (the one a friend made up):
I am the edge of my shape.
Flat are my sides and sharp are my corners.
I have been created over a thousand times.
Unknown to bounce.
Nor known to roll.
Have withstood pressure to be stacked many times.
Yet, the contents will never be known.
So as I open,
UNLIMITED BOX WORKS!
I am the edge of my shape.
Squared is my face and cubed is my volume.
I have proved over a thousand theorems.
Variable to rational,
Variable to imaginary,
These polygons hold many numbers,
Yet these polygons will remained unsolved.
So, as I calculate,
UNLIMITED BOX WORKS!
The Applicable Practical Version (the one a friend made up):
I am the edge of my shape.
Flat are my sides and sharp are my corners.
I have been created over a thousand times.
Unknown to bounce.
Nor known to roll.
Have withstood pressure to be stacked many times.
Yet, the contents will never be known.
So as I open,
UNLIMITED BOX WORKS!
18.2.08
Microbio + Anime
No, this is not a review on Moyashimon. I haven't finished microbiology yet so I'm not finishing Moyashimon until I finish that class.
ANYWAY because studying is so much fun, I decided to relate a bunch of microbiology to animelike things.
Anime Respiration
There are five classifications that Otakuisms fall into when classifying Anime Respiration. It is important to keep note of them in the case you would wish to cultivate any, by any chance.
Obligate Aniobe: These cultures must watch the most popular anime series and must always be given the top overwatched anime or else will perish. Examples are those who watch Naruto and Bleach.
Obligate Ananiobe: These otakuisms cannot stand the sight of immensely popular series. Instead, they stay far away on the bottom, only watching series that have never been heard of and never will be heard of. Any exposure to a popular anime series will result in a mass of flames and death of the otakuism.
Facultative Ananiobe: These otakuisms can tolerate a variety of anime series, but thrive best on the popular ones. They do not mind watching series less popular, but surely the more popular series are popular for a reason, right?
Microaniphile: These otakuisms dislike a strongly popular series, but still require the series to be somewhat popular for them to watch. Examples of this are those who dislike bleach or naruto but would go after something like Haruhi or any Key anime, which are fairly popular in Japan. However, none of these series have been overhyped, hence, a lower exposure of popular anime series.
Anitolerant: These otakuisms will watch anything, whether it's popular or not. They don't care if it's on the top of the list or on the bottom of the list, as long as there's something to watch.
Judging from these classifications, I would most likely classify an otakuism like me either Anitolerant or Obligate ananiobe. Probably more Anitolerant.
-----
Have you ever noticed that in some anime when a person becomes "healed" or while "healing" a wound, the wound or the healing hand will usually glow a glowing color? From reading my microbiology textbook, I think I can attribute this to a bacteria that produces a natural antibiotic. Apparently during the civil war, sometimes a soldier's wound would appear to glow in the dark and this was attributed to the soldier's wound as healing; in actuality, there is a luminescent bacterium known as Photorhabdus luminescens which produces a glowing light as well as an antibiotic which prevents infectious bacteria from taking advantage of the wound. So, whenever the next time you see a priest using "Heal!", think of the Photorhabdus luminescens!!!
-----
THE GIANT BACILLI IN TOUHOU ARE KILLING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ANYWAY because studying is so much fun, I decided to relate a bunch of microbiology to animelike things.
Anime Respiration
There are five classifications that Otakuisms fall into when classifying Anime Respiration. It is important to keep note of them in the case you would wish to cultivate any, by any chance.
Obligate Aniobe: These cultures must watch the most popular anime series and must always be given the top overwatched anime or else will perish. Examples are those who watch Naruto and Bleach.
Obligate Ananiobe: These otakuisms cannot stand the sight of immensely popular series. Instead, they stay far away on the bottom, only watching series that have never been heard of and never will be heard of. Any exposure to a popular anime series will result in a mass of flames and death of the otakuism.
Facultative Ananiobe: These otakuisms can tolerate a variety of anime series, but thrive best on the popular ones. They do not mind watching series less popular, but surely the more popular series are popular for a reason, right?
Microaniphile: These otakuisms dislike a strongly popular series, but still require the series to be somewhat popular for them to watch. Examples of this are those who dislike bleach or naruto but would go after something like Haruhi or any Key anime, which are fairly popular in Japan. However, none of these series have been overhyped, hence, a lower exposure of popular anime series.
Anitolerant: These otakuisms will watch anything, whether it's popular or not. They don't care if it's on the top of the list or on the bottom of the list, as long as there's something to watch.
Judging from these classifications, I would most likely classify an otakuism like me either Anitolerant or Obligate ananiobe. Probably more Anitolerant.
-----
Have you ever noticed that in some anime when a person becomes "healed" or while "healing" a wound, the wound or the healing hand will usually glow a glowing color? From reading my microbiology textbook, I think I can attribute this to a bacteria that produces a natural antibiotic. Apparently during the civil war, sometimes a soldier's wound would appear to glow in the dark and this was attributed to the soldier's wound as healing; in actuality, there is a luminescent bacterium known as Photorhabdus luminescens which produces a glowing light as well as an antibiotic which prevents infectious bacteria from taking advantage of the wound. So, whenever the next time you see a priest using "Heal!", think of the Photorhabdus luminescens!!!
-----
THE GIANT BACILLI IN TOUHOU ARE KILLING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6.1.08
ef- tales of memories
With a bit of humiliation I will admit, this will probably be my favorite romance anime for a while.
There are other anime classified as romance that I hold in high regard, but in those cases I usually like them because of various other elements, mostly fantasy, more rarely comedy. For example, AIR is still my all-time favorite anime, but AIR had a lot of fantasy elements that I consider AIR more of a favorite fantasy type anime than a romance (plainly I couldn't see any romance getting past Misuzu and Yukito being brother and sister, anyway).
Similary ef-tales of memories had some fantastical elements, but they were not abstractly connected to reality. Instead, the show had a ton of symbolism. A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT THAT CAUSED ME TO RESURFACE MY TENDENCIES TO POINT OUT SUCH SYMBOLS... the broken leg, the sheep math problem, and ultimately, the novel written by the andrograde amnesia girl. I really could not help but say "that is just neat" everytime they included such symbolic elements, even though the world around them is still very much similar to a regular, realistic world.
(Save for some points that they never went into, which is a bit bothersome but serves the purpose of emphasizing that this is a romance anime.)
Those symbolic points, along with the andrograde amnesia case which I have to find interesting since I take biology and neurology courses, are the main aspects that set this anime apart from other romance anime. Other romance anime typically emphasize so much on lovey-dovey that it becomes boring to me to continuously watch it; this one had, first, the memory-deficient girl which has the audience (aka me) saying "interesting", then continues to add various symbolic meanings and drawings as the series goes on. It's sad to say that it's one of those anime I can't watch one time to catch all the symbolism and meanings, yet don't feel like watching it all over again... I might anyway.
The only anime I have done that with right now is AIR.
That being put aside, I've decided to list my favorite anime in each anime genre.
Romance: ef-tales of memories
Comedy: Nodame Cantabile (I watch a lot of comedy just for laughs, but since it is comedy, it never really strikes out as "this is incredible" or "this is so touching"... Nodame Cantabile is quite decent however)
Fantasy: AIR
Action: Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha
Science Fiction: Stellvia of the Universe (old favorites die hard?)
Slice of Life: Aria
Suspense: Code Geass (Good anime but &^*&^$*#^ stupid cliffhangers)
Other series worth noting that I haven't noted because I've been too busy watching anime:
Sayanora Zetsubou Sensei: A sarcastic comedy anime. Fun to watch but kind of leaves you feeling like "wtf" for some time. Many people say the art design for this anime rocks. I agree.
Gurren Laagan: A mech anime introduced to me by a friend. If I were to define mech anime, I'd use this anime as the example, just like if I were to define utopia I'd use Aria.
Sky Girls TV: I like this anime's art style, but I haven't watched enough to say much about it. So far it's slow, but I'm liking it.
I've watched a lot of anime and wanted to write stuff up on it, but because of my laziness I haven't done much. And now school is going to start soon. Oh well, it was a fun anime-filled winter break for me...~
There are other anime classified as romance that I hold in high regard, but in those cases I usually like them because of various other elements, mostly fantasy, more rarely comedy. For example, AIR is still my all-time favorite anime, but AIR had a lot of fantasy elements that I consider AIR more of a favorite fantasy type anime than a romance (plainly I couldn't see any romance getting past Misuzu and Yukito being brother and sister, anyway).
Similary ef-tales of memories had some fantastical elements, but they were not abstractly connected to reality. Instead, the show had a ton of symbolism. A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT THAT CAUSED ME TO RESURFACE MY TENDENCIES TO POINT OUT SUCH SYMBOLS... the broken leg, the sheep math problem, and ultimately, the novel written by the andrograde amnesia girl. I really could not help but say "that is just neat" everytime they included such symbolic elements, even though the world around them is still very much similar to a regular, realistic world.
(Save for some points that they never went into, which is a bit bothersome but serves the purpose of emphasizing that this is a romance anime.)
Those symbolic points, along with the andrograde amnesia case which I have to find interesting since I take biology and neurology courses, are the main aspects that set this anime apart from other romance anime. Other romance anime typically emphasize so much on lovey-dovey that it becomes boring to me to continuously watch it; this one had, first, the memory-deficient girl which has the audience (aka me) saying "interesting", then continues to add various symbolic meanings and drawings as the series goes on. It's sad to say that it's one of those anime I can't watch one time to catch all the symbolism and meanings, yet don't feel like watching it all over again... I might anyway.
The only anime I have done that with right now is AIR.
That being put aside, I've decided to list my favorite anime in each anime genre.
Romance: ef-tales of memories
Comedy: Nodame Cantabile (I watch a lot of comedy just for laughs, but since it is comedy, it never really strikes out as "this is incredible" or "this is so touching"... Nodame Cantabile is quite decent however)
Fantasy: AIR
Action: Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha
Science Fiction: Stellvia of the Universe (old favorites die hard?)
Slice of Life: Aria
Suspense: Code Geass (Good anime but &^*&^$*#^ stupid cliffhangers)
Other series worth noting that I haven't noted because I've been too busy watching anime:
Sayanora Zetsubou Sensei: A sarcastic comedy anime. Fun to watch but kind of leaves you feeling like "wtf" for some time. Many people say the art design for this anime rocks. I agree.
Gurren Laagan: A mech anime introduced to me by a friend. If I were to define mech anime, I'd use this anime as the example, just like if I were to define utopia I'd use Aria.
Sky Girls TV: I like this anime's art style, but I haven't watched enough to say much about it. So far it's slow, but I'm liking it.
I've watched a lot of anime and wanted to write stuff up on it, but because of my laziness I haven't done much. And now school is going to start soon. Oh well, it was a fun anime-filled winter break for me...~
27.12.07
Aria
ARIA DEFINES UTOPIA. PERIOD.
(Note: this viewer has not finished watching this animated series. Please consult this blog at another time in the future for further information regarding the opinion of this viewer on this animated series.)
(Note: this viewer has not finished watching this animated series. Please consult this blog at another time in the future for further information regarding the opinion of this viewer on this animated series.)
14.12.07
Disregard this (Post #200 btw)
OMG MY PROFESSOR DIDN'T EMAIL MY GRADE TO MY ADVISOR FESIfvwonvFPCSEFNefip FNSIF I HOPE THIS FREAKIN GETS FIXED I DON'T WANT TO RUIN MYDAMNRECORDJUSTBECAUSE MYPROFESSORDIDN'TEMAILMYDIRECTEDRESEARCH GRADE OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMG AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH sjFOSIDV soF isofiaof aifo asiS
I NEED
TO BASH
SOMETHINGGGG
I NEED
TO BASH
SOMETHINGGGG
12.12.07
A sense of humbleness
One of the things I was always raised with was to be compared to people. I don't know if that's really a good thing or a bad thing (most people seem to regard this as a bad thing) but typically my parents (and eventually, I myself) frequently refer to others like role models and the oh so famous line, "why can't you be like them". I think in regards to most people, eventually they started comparing themselves to worse people and saying "its a good thing I'm not like them" or to just stop comparing themselves. But as a person myself I still look to the skills and achievements of others, and at the same time realize the insignificance I am compared to many of these people. It's a dejecting feeling, to know that you haven't in the least accomplished as much as others have, even more so if they're about the same age as you; but musing it over it appears that it can't be helped. It's always a disappointing feeling for myself when I realize myself as "just average"; on the one hand it could be worse, but it could always be better. This is the scenario to be dealt with all the time, no matter how much I want to better or worse my life.
The obvious solution to this is, of course, stop being lazy, stop procrastinating, do more in life. In terms of procrastination, I attempt to do things a little at a time so it they don't build up, so despite my ADHD I'm not sure of that's a particular problem, however, it seems difficult to devote myself to work aside from school work (and more recently, lab work). I believe this will not fare well for me in the future and in real life, and indeed if I could overcome this problem, I can probably be more "achieved" in life like others I refer to. Stop playing games, do more work? maybe. That would change who I am though, although maybe a change is needed...
In an ideal situation I'd still be able to play games and work hard and achieve something. I think I'm reaching as an ideal situation as I can get, maintaining fairly nice grades, doing a decent amount of work in lab, and still going to anime club and playing RO. But it's always the inevitable feeling... when will the ideal situation end? When will I have to start achieving more and giving up what silly yet entertaining pleasures I have?
Life is never going to be so simple. I hope I can grow up without any problems...
The obvious solution to this is, of course, stop being lazy, stop procrastinating, do more in life. In terms of procrastination, I attempt to do things a little at a time so it they don't build up, so despite my ADHD I'm not sure of that's a particular problem, however, it seems difficult to devote myself to work aside from school work (and more recently, lab work). I believe this will not fare well for me in the future and in real life, and indeed if I could overcome this problem, I can probably be more "achieved" in life like others I refer to. Stop playing games, do more work? maybe. That would change who I am though, although maybe a change is needed...
In an ideal situation I'd still be able to play games and work hard and achieve something. I think I'm reaching as an ideal situation as I can get, maintaining fairly nice grades, doing a decent amount of work in lab, and still going to anime club and playing RO. But it's always the inevitable feeling... when will the ideal situation end? When will I have to start achieving more and giving up what silly yet entertaining pleasures I have?
Life is never going to be so simple. I hope I can grow up without any problems...
7.12.07
Lucky Star
One of the big burning questions (ok, maybe not so big and burning) is why people would hold this show in such high regard for its, in many people's honest and decently logical opinion, mediocrity. It's artstyle isn't that great, the music is poppy and catchy but nothing truly emotion touching, and to inquire if there was any sort of plot would be futile. However, Lucky Star has, for me and for many other viewers, been a very decent show to watch that has proved to be more entertaining than the other "mediocre" shows out there, and there remains the mystery of why this is so.
This is most likely because it's the best anime-tized lifestyle one can relate to. Anime in general will frequently have references to cultural events or other facts here and there that one can say "hey I know what they're talking about", but Lucky star does that about every episode for the normal person, and every 2 minutes for the common otaku. This is why it has so much appeal; the joy of saying "I TOTALLY KNOW HOW THIS CHARACTER IS FEELING RIGHT NOW" or "I DEFINITELY KNOW HOW THAT FEELS" every so often, only you're seeing it in anime form with cute girls acting out your everyday quirks and actions. This is probably Lucky Star's greatest strengths, to relate to so many events that everyone has in their lives, especially in the common everyday life of an otaku. Not even a hardcore otaku, but also the casual otaku who, like Kagami, is interested in normal life just as much as the anime culture.
Speaking of Kagami, I'm not typically a fan of tsundere but Kagami is my second favorite character (in the main group) plainly because she's so funny and I can relate with her a ton of times. If anything, it feels like both the personality of Kagami and Konata are with me all the time, with the "Kagami" conscience always saying "why the hell are you doing that"... Kagami's wtf moments are the best scenes for laughing, as great as Tsukasa and Konota's cousin's bumbling moments are the best scenes for gushing...GUSHGUSHGUSH ok enough of that.
SPOILERS NOT LIKE ANYONE WHO'S READING THIS CARES OR IF THEY DO THEY PROBABLY FINISHED LUCKY STAR ALREADY. In terms of the scene where Konata's mother comes back as a ghost figure, I think that was probably, personally, the least realistic and relatable subject yet most fantasized situation of any otaku individual out there. To have a loved one (and a childhood friend at that!) presented as so easily "obtained" is most possibly the most ideal scenario any otaku would want... just like as if it had come out of a dating sim game. I bring this up because one person apparently was telling me how great it is and wanted me to finish up Lucky Star just so I can watch it. It's a decent scene, but nothing along the lines of AIR and Lucky Star just isn't an anime to be taken seriously, so it would be a bit out of place as well. I understand that there are some anime which can put in a real serious moment after so many scenes of happy and funness (see: Full Moon wo Sagashite), but Lucky Star isn't one of them: it's comedy and pure comedy and anything deviating from it would be illogical.
Or Kagami would say. :V
This is most likely because it's the best anime-tized lifestyle one can relate to. Anime in general will frequently have references to cultural events or other facts here and there that one can say "hey I know what they're talking about", but Lucky star does that about every episode for the normal person, and every 2 minutes for the common otaku. This is why it has so much appeal; the joy of saying "I TOTALLY KNOW HOW THIS CHARACTER IS FEELING RIGHT NOW" or "I DEFINITELY KNOW HOW THAT FEELS" every so often, only you're seeing it in anime form with cute girls acting out your everyday quirks and actions. This is probably Lucky Star's greatest strengths, to relate to so many events that everyone has in their lives, especially in the common everyday life of an otaku. Not even a hardcore otaku, but also the casual otaku who, like Kagami, is interested in normal life just as much as the anime culture.
Speaking of Kagami, I'm not typically a fan of tsundere but Kagami is my second favorite character (in the main group) plainly because she's so funny and I can relate with her a ton of times. If anything, it feels like both the personality of Kagami and Konata are with me all the time, with the "Kagami" conscience always saying "why the hell are you doing that"... Kagami's wtf moments are the best scenes for laughing, as great as Tsukasa and Konota's cousin's bumbling moments are the best scenes for gushing...GUSHGUSHGUSH ok enough of that.
SPOILERS NOT LIKE ANYONE WHO'S READING THIS CARES OR IF THEY DO THEY PROBABLY FINISHED LUCKY STAR ALREADY. In terms of the scene where Konata's mother comes back as a ghost figure, I think that was probably, personally, the least realistic and relatable subject yet most fantasized situation of any otaku individual out there. To have a loved one (and a childhood friend at that!) presented as so easily "obtained" is most possibly the most ideal scenario any otaku would want... just like as if it had come out of a dating sim game. I bring this up because one person apparently was telling me how great it is and wanted me to finish up Lucky Star just so I can watch it. It's a decent scene, but nothing along the lines of AIR and Lucky Star just isn't an anime to be taken seriously, so it would be a bit out of place as well. I understand that there are some anime which can put in a real serious moment after so many scenes of happy and funness (see: Full Moon wo Sagashite), but Lucky Star isn't one of them: it's comedy and pure comedy and anything deviating from it would be illogical.
Or Kagami would say. :V
3.12.07
Neurobiologist's guide to Ragnarok Online
STR- actin filaments, muscle spindles, golgi tendons, neuromuscular junction activity
DEX- Motor neuron, motor cortex, procedural learning, cerebellum activity
AGI- Propeoception, somatosensory cortex, myelination
VIT- Increased endorphin release, Dorsal cell ganglion
INT- Hypothalamus and Temporal Lobe, Declarative Learning
LUK- ...:V
DEX- Motor neuron, motor cortex, procedural learning, cerebellum activity
AGI- Propeoception, somatosensory cortex, myelination
VIT- Increased endorphin release, Dorsal cell ganglion
INT- Hypothalamus and Temporal Lobe, Declarative Learning
LUK- ...:V
28.11.07
Scientific Journal Articles
The truth.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/63957/How-to-write-Consistently-Boring-Scientific-Literature
http://www.scribd.com/doc/63957/How-to-write-Consistently-Boring-Scientific-Literature
5.11.07
*hijack* this blog is now a lab rant blog.
OMG I can't believe that I did that aaaaaggghhh I thought yesterday that I had completely run out of primary antibody and that my experiments had to be delayed once again so I panicked and requested an overnight delivery request but of course all the offices were closed and I couldn't find a fax machine so I had to wait until the next day at 8 AM and hope they can get it before 8:30 AM (that's the deadline for overnight shipping) but it turns out the guy in charge of orders is out for the ENTIRE DAY so I probably won't get my antibody tomorrow but then I come into lab and came up with this INGENIUS idea that of course I couldn't think up yesterday to vortext the damn antibody and well what do you know there IS ENOUGH ANTIBODY FOR ME TO USE BUT GODDAMMIT I RUINED THE ANTIBODY BECAUSE I DIDN'T PUT IT BACK INTO THE FREEZER BECAUSE I THOUGHT I RAN OUT OF ALL THE ANTIBODY ALREADY AND SO NOW THE ANTIBODY IS COMPLETELY RUINED but I'm going to try probing with the primary anyway because I figured any result at this point is a good result and even if I don't see anything surely by the time I develop my blots I'll get the emergency delivered new antibody and I can just reprobe without stripping or anything since its the same antibody anyway and I'm sure if anyone reads this blog they couldn't care less other than the fact that this is the most terrible run on sentence they have seen in their life.
25.10.07
Lab Drama
So, First off I want to make a recognition and acknowledgment of "being emo". In general, most people believe "being emo" is bad in itself, that it's some entity that takes over people's minds and makes them want to kill themselves. On the contrary, I think its normal to have specific emotional fluctuations depending on mood. Typically, its the source that causes a person to become "emo" that is the problem, in my opinion. When someone is "emo" because of something, it means he or she REALLY REALLY cares about it. He or she may state, while being emo, that he or she hates (emo source), but in reality he or she probably feels like he or she can't live without it. In this general sense, I believe people who become "emo" over a game like Ragnarok Online should find something else to care about because in essence RO is just a game. I find people that become "emo" over love, personally, a bit silly BUT I acknowledge that they find it an important thing; I certainly respect their emotions if they are in a depressed state and will not try to state their rightness or wrongness in drowning in their emotions because of a loved one.
I bring this issue up because recently I've been having a LOT of issues regarding lab work in general. It is very difficult because I am not a person who will openly say "DEPRESSED LAB WORKS SUCKS RANT RANT RANT" because we need to have a people-friendly environment in the lab. But recent issues that have come up with my advisor and an endless array of mistakes that I never seem to improve on is driving me up the wall. Remember, I acknowledge that I like lab work and, for the most part, when I'm actually doing the work I'm quite happy. However, 2 issues is leaving me to feel like little more than dirt:
1.) My Advisor. I respect and honor my advisor a lot for teaching me so many techniques and introducing me to the lab environment. He has, for the most part, been guiding me, perhaps in his opinion too much, through various conferences, lab meetings, and experiments to get me where I am now. But one slight mistake I made and he decides to abandon all the guidance he has ever provided and treats me no better than anyone else in the lab. In one sense, I can understand this action. It is time, he believes, that I should be independent, solve mistakes on my own, analyze data and journal articles, and become ultimately the same level as he is in terms of stature. But I'm not, I'm still hanging. Its not that I don't do anything now that he's not helping; I'm going through experiments, doing more than I ever did before, trying to solve problems and read papers... but his lack of acknowledgement is discouraging. If even just once, he says something like "you're doing a good job" like he did before, even if he didn't help me, I think I'd feel much better. But he just treats me (if I dare say) coldly, not giving any acknowlegement to the work I'm trying to desperately do to prove to myself and others that I'm not just a child but someone who's actually devoting time and his life to research.
I believe that it's probably a selfish request, to request for acknowledgement. In the real world no one is going to care if you're a scientist or a toilet scrubber. But still, I can't help feeling down about it.
2.) Mistakes. I make them all the time. In midterms, while playing piano, and in experiments. I believe the lack of acknowledgement from my advisor and others also relates into this area, because if I keep on producing mistakes, I can't produce data, and without data I can't prove that I've been working hard. This is the sad truth of my lab life, that in spite of how hard I worked, I haven't produced any data on my own that I can say, "I did this, this is what I have shown". Yesterday I came so close, SO CLOSE, but then, I realized this morning, I did one slight stupid error... and ALL the data I ahve collected, as well as some of the experiments I had been doing, have been screwed over and wrong. So, I had nothing to present at the lab meeting today. This depressed me to no end, and my advisor of course gives no sympathy. But, lesson learned (or rather relearned, over and over again) that nothing ever goes according to plan. NOTHING... I just worry if I can make my experiments on time.
I stopped halfway through this blog post and began to do more experiments and now I feel a helluvalot better than I did before. I apologize for anyone that bothers to read this blog for this post, as I try to make my blog entries as emo-free as possible. But then again I suppose I now understand why others emo into blogs, because when other people (like, your advisor) don't listen to you anymore you want a place to "talk" to and and maybe just pretend people are listening to you. I love working in lab to its utmost fullest, but it being something I love, even more than a game, means I'm going to have some drama and emoness tag along as well.
I bring this issue up because recently I've been having a LOT of issues regarding lab work in general. It is very difficult because I am not a person who will openly say "DEPRESSED LAB WORKS SUCKS RANT RANT RANT" because we need to have a people-friendly environment in the lab. But recent issues that have come up with my advisor and an endless array of mistakes that I never seem to improve on is driving me up the wall. Remember, I acknowledge that I like lab work and, for the most part, when I'm actually doing the work I'm quite happy. However, 2 issues is leaving me to feel like little more than dirt:
1.) My Advisor. I respect and honor my advisor a lot for teaching me so many techniques and introducing me to the lab environment. He has, for the most part, been guiding me, perhaps in his opinion too much, through various conferences, lab meetings, and experiments to get me where I am now. But one slight mistake I made and he decides to abandon all the guidance he has ever provided and treats me no better than anyone else in the lab. In one sense, I can understand this action. It is time, he believes, that I should be independent, solve mistakes on my own, analyze data and journal articles, and become ultimately the same level as he is in terms of stature. But I'm not, I'm still hanging. Its not that I don't do anything now that he's not helping; I'm going through experiments, doing more than I ever did before, trying to solve problems and read papers... but his lack of acknowledgement is discouraging. If even just once, he says something like "you're doing a good job" like he did before, even if he didn't help me, I think I'd feel much better. But he just treats me (if I dare say) coldly, not giving any acknowlegement to the work I'm trying to desperately do to prove to myself and others that I'm not just a child but someone who's actually devoting time and his life to research.
I believe that it's probably a selfish request, to request for acknowledgement. In the real world no one is going to care if you're a scientist or a toilet scrubber. But still, I can't help feeling down about it.
2.) Mistakes. I make them all the time. In midterms, while playing piano, and in experiments. I believe the lack of acknowledgement from my advisor and others also relates into this area, because if I keep on producing mistakes, I can't produce data, and without data I can't prove that I've been working hard. This is the sad truth of my lab life, that in spite of how hard I worked, I haven't produced any data on my own that I can say, "I did this, this is what I have shown". Yesterday I came so close, SO CLOSE, but then, I realized this morning, I did one slight stupid error... and ALL the data I ahve collected, as well as some of the experiments I had been doing, have been screwed over and wrong. So, I had nothing to present at the lab meeting today. This depressed me to no end, and my advisor of course gives no sympathy. But, lesson learned (or rather relearned, over and over again) that nothing ever goes according to plan. NOTHING... I just worry if I can make my experiments on time.
I stopped halfway through this blog post and began to do more experiments and now I feel a helluvalot better than I did before. I apologize for anyone that bothers to read this blog for this post, as I try to make my blog entries as emo-free as possible. But then again I suppose I now understand why others emo into blogs, because when other people (like, your advisor) don't listen to you anymore you want a place to "talk" to and and maybe just pretend people are listening to you. I love working in lab to its utmost fullest, but it being something I love, even more than a game, means I'm going to have some drama and emoness tag along as well.
17.10.07
Perennial Midterms Rant, cont
So after the first fiasco involving my BME Physiology midterm, we had our second today and, looking back, I realized I have missed a lot of things I could have easily gotten right if I was just in focus. Once again I was overthinking one problem due to some rule that I thought was important (but now that I look back on it I should have just ignored it and I probably would have done fine), giving up time where I could have looked through my problems and corrected some really easy errors that I made. But again, its only when I look back that I think "oh, that's wrong" and realize I'm going to lose a few points not because I didn't know the material but because I rushed and made an error.
The frustration is hard to cope with. Unfortunately I can't go off campus until about 5 PM so I'll have to deal with it until then.
There's a break but there's also a lot of work coming up. Hopefully the least this midterm can do is wake me up and get me started on some things I need to do before it gets all crammed to Hell Week #2 for this semester...
The frustration is hard to cope with. Unfortunately I can't go off campus until about 5 PM so I'll have to deal with it until then.
There's a break but there's also a lot of work coming up. Hopefully the least this midterm can do is wake me up and get me started on some things I need to do before it gets all crammed to Hell Week #2 for this semester...
8.10.07
Perennial Midterms Rant
There was an episode of Lucky Star I watched over the weekend where one of the characters had something bad happen to her, then it showed her going through her day and making small, stupid, annoying little mistakes, which mostly have nothing to do with the bad thing that happened at first, but just because of the bad event she was now having a bad day.
I could not relate to this scenario any more than right now.
As a side note, I need to make a entry on Lucky Star after I finished it. As if it wasn't obvious already, I think its key attribute is the fact that many of the watchers are able to relate to the events occurring in Lucky Star fairly often, even if you're not a hardcore otaku. Like the 3-second rule, or the bad day example I was just talking about.
...If I get a C in one of my classes my life is over.
I could not relate to this scenario any more than right now.
As a side note, I need to make a entry on Lucky Star after I finished it. As if it wasn't obvious already, I think its key attribute is the fact that many of the watchers are able to relate to the events occurring in Lucky Star fairly often, even if you're not a hardcore otaku. Like the 3-second rule, or the bad day example I was just talking about.
...If I get a C in one of my classes my life is over.
10.9.07
LOL what
An anime artist drew a picture for the cover of "Cell" recently.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-09-07/jojo's-araki-draws-cover-for-u.s-biological-journal-cell
Obviously, the people who requested it (and have their article as the main one to read in Cell) were Japanese. For those who might not know, Cell is a highly academically acclaimed scientific journal that publishes the latest research in cell biology. It is VERY prominent and to have your paper published in Cell is a great honor, similar to getting your paper published in Nature or winning the Nobel Peace prize (well, that could possibly be the greatest honor of all in science).
While the artist is just another passing artist, it was still nice to know that something from two worlds I thought could never come together... comes together in this unique and awesome way.
I am absolutely reading this article just because of the cover. :V (It's a good article and relates to neuroscience! People should read it!)
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-09-07/jojo's-araki-draws-cover-for-u.s-biological-journal-cell
Obviously, the people who requested it (and have their article as the main one to read in Cell) were Japanese. For those who might not know, Cell is a highly academically acclaimed scientific journal that publishes the latest research in cell biology. It is VERY prominent and to have your paper published in Cell is a great honor, similar to getting your paper published in Nature or winning the Nobel Peace prize (well, that could possibly be the greatest honor of all in science).
While the artist is just another passing artist, it was still nice to know that something from two worlds I thought could never come together... comes together in this unique and awesome way.
I am absolutely reading this article just because of the cover. :V (It's a good article and relates to neuroscience! People should read it!)
5.8.07
Code Geass
TERRIBLE WAY TO END THE FIRST SEASON But I suppose it's appropriate. Almost makes me not want to have finished it, but I needed to free up room on my harddrive.
An EXCELLENT series, one that I supremely love and nominate as best anime for this (or last?) year. Unlike what others (including my friend) may think, I can define this as one of the most "hotblooded" series of the year, if taking into account "hotblood" is the definition of the feeling of excitement and anticipation. For me, the excitement and anticipation lies in the planning and ingenuity of Lelouche, most likely the most impressive character I have ever met. While having a slightly annoying ego, his intelligence greatly makes up for it and can be classified as one heck of an awesome character. What's most intriguing is that all his hopes and efforts are for his sister, in his efforts to find revenge to the one that did her sister harm and to have a world where him and his sister can live in peace (obviously, highly idealistic). For someone to work out plans so logically and base them on something so human... this is the human rationale. All of logic, whether from math or science, originates from ideals and imagination, an entity that does not truly exist. There is no such thing as a dot, or a line, as they can all be traced into being either a circle or an extended rectangle. Yet because we are able to establish a "dot" or a "line", we can define things like circles and rectangles. Idealogy is everything in reasoning, and part of Lelouche's character reflects that.
Additionally, another great factor of Code Geass is that no matter how great his plans were thought out, something always falters and fails. If none of his plans gets ruined, then it would just look highly unrealistic. But even if his plans fail, he manages to take advantage of whatever the situations that come up. Only in VERY FEW events does he rely purely on luck, and in that case, its quite forgivable (hey, this is anime after all, isn't it?).
Aside from Lelouche being the coolest male protagonist I think I have ever seen, other characters are fairly interesting in their own ways. Lelouche's good friend, Suzaku I believe, is interesting in his own respects. A kind guy, albeit a dangerous pilot. I was entertained how his movements were predicted by Lelouche after a while. Overall I didn't concentrate too much on him because there was obviously someone much cooler close to him that I was trying to figure out. As for some of the girls, I find that Euphemia and Shirley were both reasonably cute. C.C. had her own style of "cuteness", if more appropriate termed the word "hot" although I seldom use the word and don't like to use it often.
Slight spoilers though if you are reading this you either a. don't care or b. already watched Code Geass already. Not like anyone reads these blogs anyway... BUT
I find it really interesting that of all the ways that Lelouche's plans get ruined, the one that seemed to deal him the hardest blow was by his sister Euphemia. That was one twister I really liked. Another was shortly after how he accidently manipulates her to conduct a genocide, ultimately putting things in his favor once again. What's interesting about that is how he regretted his decision, but continued to move on. An amazing show of persistence, even if despite the fact that he is sacrificing one of his relatives to "save" another. (Needless to say his logic begins to falter, but there's so much other things going on that I never really had time to develop and think on that).
Orange-kun is strangely entertaining! He is similar to one of those guys everyone loves to pick on just because he gets angry, and he gets angry because he gets picked on. A lose-lose situation on his part, but oh well. AND HE PILOTS A GIANT ORANGE LATER!! How entertaining is that :V
The music... overall I enjoyed the intro to the first half of the show, ending to the second half of the show, and the intro to the last episodes, the other OP/ED was not as much to my tastes.
With that I believe I have said most of what I wanted to say in Code Geass. There has so far never been as an exciting of an anime as Code Geass. Code Geass and Sola are the anime to watch this season! Go for it! :D
An EXCELLENT series, one that I supremely love and nominate as best anime for this (or last?) year. Unlike what others (including my friend) may think, I can define this as one of the most "hotblooded" series of the year, if taking into account "hotblood" is the definition of the feeling of excitement and anticipation. For me, the excitement and anticipation lies in the planning and ingenuity of Lelouche, most likely the most impressive character I have ever met. While having a slightly annoying ego, his intelligence greatly makes up for it and can be classified as one heck of an awesome character. What's most intriguing is that all his hopes and efforts are for his sister, in his efforts to find revenge to the one that did her sister harm and to have a world where him and his sister can live in peace (obviously, highly idealistic). For someone to work out plans so logically and base them on something so human... this is the human rationale. All of logic, whether from math or science, originates from ideals and imagination, an entity that does not truly exist. There is no such thing as a dot, or a line, as they can all be traced into being either a circle or an extended rectangle. Yet because we are able to establish a "dot" or a "line", we can define things like circles and rectangles. Idealogy is everything in reasoning, and part of Lelouche's character reflects that.
Additionally, another great factor of Code Geass is that no matter how great his plans were thought out, something always falters and fails. If none of his plans gets ruined, then it would just look highly unrealistic. But even if his plans fail, he manages to take advantage of whatever the situations that come up. Only in VERY FEW events does he rely purely on luck, and in that case, its quite forgivable (hey, this is anime after all, isn't it?).
Aside from Lelouche being the coolest male protagonist I think I have ever seen, other characters are fairly interesting in their own ways. Lelouche's good friend, Suzaku I believe, is interesting in his own respects. A kind guy, albeit a dangerous pilot. I was entertained how his movements were predicted by Lelouche after a while. Overall I didn't concentrate too much on him because there was obviously someone much cooler close to him that I was trying to figure out. As for some of the girls, I find that Euphemia and Shirley were both reasonably cute. C.C. had her own style of "cuteness", if more appropriate termed the word "hot" although I seldom use the word and don't like to use it often.
Slight spoilers though if you are reading this you either a. don't care or b. already watched Code Geass already. Not like anyone reads these blogs anyway... BUT
I find it really interesting that of all the ways that Lelouche's plans get ruined, the one that seemed to deal him the hardest blow was by his sister Euphemia. That was one twister I really liked. Another was shortly after how he accidently manipulates her to conduct a genocide, ultimately putting things in his favor once again. What's interesting about that is how he regretted his decision, but continued to move on. An amazing show of persistence, even if despite the fact that he is sacrificing one of his relatives to "save" another. (Needless to say his logic begins to falter, but there's so much other things going on that I never really had time to develop and think on that).
Orange-kun is strangely entertaining! He is similar to one of those guys everyone loves to pick on just because he gets angry, and he gets angry because he gets picked on. A lose-lose situation on his part, but oh well. AND HE PILOTS A GIANT ORANGE LATER!! How entertaining is that :V
The music... overall I enjoyed the intro to the first half of the show, ending to the second half of the show, and the intro to the last episodes, the other OP/ED was not as much to my tastes.
With that I believe I have said most of what I wanted to say in Code Geass. There has so far never been as an exciting of an anime as Code Geass. Code Geass and Sola are the anime to watch this season! Go for it! :D
1.8.07
Planetarian
Lately I haven't been writing significant posts, particularly reviews on anime and other related material. This is mainly due to the fact that I had to take Writing 340 over the summer which resulted in me not feeling like writing up anything. This is not necessarily due to the fact that I haven't been watching any (decent) anime (on the contrary, Sola was a very good anime that I would suggest to others, but have not yet written a review yet). However, presently I have just... (Played? Watched? Read? insert appropriate verb here) Planetarian, the Reverie of a Little Planet, and, like any otaku fan that knows of Key, the work was spectacular.
I have to admit, similar to how when I first watch Haruhi and AIR, the work seems to be pure eyecandy. I can't deny that I enjoyed most of the visual novel because of how cute the Planetarian girl looked, because personality wise I (until the very VERY end) did not find her any more exciting than an AIM bot dressed nicely. VERY nicely. In fact this makes me worry, in the event that in the future people will design advertising bots just like her and possibly warp the minds of many into this monopolistic world of fantasy... but I digress. This visual novel isn't, of course, about the mindnumbing cuteness of the main heroine and it's theoretical possibility of brainwashing poor fools into buying things just because they're cute. It is an entertaining story, sometimes fun, sometimes sad, overall very moving and heavily touching.
Following this point there will be spoilers.
The part where she is attacked and begins "dying", so to speak, was not particularly moving in that she got shot and is dying. This the authors (ie, Key?) probably realized, even though, yes, the death of a cute character like her is indeed sad. What made the entire scene so touching was her memories that she recalled. What's moreso about it is how throughout the entire visual novel, she mentions the concept of memory here and there, and at the very beginning only briefly mentions her holographic replay feature. It almost hits like a brick when they finally reveal the emotional link of her memories to her character. Yes, admittedly, when that part came, I had tears. I was not crying, but it could not be watched without some emotional movement within yourself. But alas, this is probably what makes the novel so great.
The little charm music, of course, helped. In fact, music was done VERY nicely to portray an appropriate mood in Planetarian. This novel is, indeed, a masterpiece as many have already said many times before, therefore, I need to blab you no further on it.
Instead I should be telling you about Sola, which is also a good anime, but for the time being I must finish up this obsession over planetarian.
I have to admit, similar to how when I first watch Haruhi and AIR, the work seems to be pure eyecandy. I can't deny that I enjoyed most of the visual novel because of how cute the Planetarian girl looked, because personality wise I (until the very VERY end) did not find her any more exciting than an AIM bot dressed nicely. VERY nicely. In fact this makes me worry, in the event that in the future people will design advertising bots just like her and possibly warp the minds of many into this monopolistic world of fantasy... but I digress. This visual novel isn't, of course, about the mindnumbing cuteness of the main heroine and it's theoretical possibility of brainwashing poor fools into buying things just because they're cute. It is an entertaining story, sometimes fun, sometimes sad, overall very moving and heavily touching.
Following this point there will be spoilers.
The part where she is attacked and begins "dying", so to speak, was not particularly moving in that she got shot and is dying. This the authors (ie, Key?) probably realized, even though, yes, the death of a cute character like her is indeed sad. What made the entire scene so touching was her memories that she recalled. What's moreso about it is how throughout the entire visual novel, she mentions the concept of memory here and there, and at the very beginning only briefly mentions her holographic replay feature. It almost hits like a brick when they finally reveal the emotional link of her memories to her character. Yes, admittedly, when that part came, I had tears. I was not crying, but it could not be watched without some emotional movement within yourself. But alas, this is probably what makes the novel so great.
The little charm music, of course, helped. In fact, music was done VERY nicely to portray an appropriate mood in Planetarian. This novel is, indeed, a masterpiece as many have already said many times before, therefore, I need to blab you no further on it.
Instead I should be telling you about Sola, which is also a good anime, but for the time being I must finish up this obsession over planetarian.
28.7.07
AIR to be released soon
My friend told me that AIR had premiered on Anime Network yesterday, July 27th, the date of my birthday. As such, I decided to look up when AIR will get released in anticipation of buying it.
Amazon.com says it'll be released on August 14th.
http://www.amazon.com/Air-TV-vol-1/dp/B000RHMQLM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-3770257-6421245?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1185655046&sr=1-1
Man, the cover looks so nice. *drool*
Best. Anime. Ever.
Amazon.com says it'll be released on August 14th.
http://www.amazon.com/Air-TV-vol-1/dp/B000RHMQLM/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-3770257-6421245?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1185655046&sr=1-1
Man, the cover looks so nice. *drool*
Best. Anime. Ever.
4.7.07
I My Me Strawberry Eggs
Overall a fairly interesting comedy anime. I think the characters are a little weak and need development, especially the characters besides the main characters. If they had more story behind some of the other characters besides just the teacher and about 3 students, then this should could have been potentially more interesting and touching. The thematic concept of the anime is decent enough; not unique, but touching upon many of the aspects of discrimination, though I do say some of the characters are quite stupid in some respects. (AKA they took WAAAAAY too long to settle the whole ZOMG IT WAS A GUY AFTER ALL issue at the final episodes) The music is a little funky (weird country music) so not that great.
Well, at least the main heroine was really cute, and though she was spaced out most of the time she seemed smarter than most of the other girls in the school. A decent enough anime to watch.
Well, at least the main heroine was really cute, and though she was spaced out most of the time she seemed smarter than most of the other girls in the school. A decent enough anime to watch.
2.7.07
AX 2007
Once again, all my BSing skills will be needed for my ethics paper in WRIT 340, which REALLY needs the BS because ethics is ALL about BS. Therefore, short bullet point summaries.
-Aya Hirano is the cutest seiyuu I have met so far, and probably will be the cutest seiyuu ever. While I still like KOTOKO and eufonius better in terms of singing, Aya has everyone beat in terms of personality, (normal) voice, and basically being an idol. Her (incredibly high) energetic nature is just like... dangerously cute for some reason. While other seiyuus might pretend to be cute, for whatever reason I find that the way she acts is as if she's genuinely excited and curious about America and her American fans, and that excitement is terribly incredibly cute for some reason.
-Aya Hirano likes cake, Yuki Goto likes alcohol, and the voice actor for Nagato likes chocolate.
- quite a lot of stuff bought. There was a lot of 2 dollar manga that me and my sister jumped on and pretty much bought the entire shelf.
-Orskaband (sp?) is cool but only because they have a trumpet, saxophone, and trombone player in their band. Unique!
-savage genius was really good, but unfortunately I was worrying through most of the concert that I wouldn't be able to get a good seat at the SOS concert to enjoy it thoroughly. I bought one of their albums though.
-the SOS concert, in the meantime, was the most poorly organized concert that ever existed. There was a 1 and a half hour delay, then when the concert finally started we find out that about half of the "concert" was just the Japanese and American VAs reciting lines from the anime. In what little music they had left, Hirano Aya and the voice actor for Nagato (I highly apologize but I cannot remember her name) both were lagging in their singing, that is, they started their singing a bit later than they were supposed to. Not only that, but the VA for Nagato also forgot some of her lines from her songs.
If concerts were graded on a 1-10 scale, this concert would have gotten a -22 except Hirano Aya was there, so that adds +100 to the concert scale. :V
-Chiaki Ishikawa (or the Yuki Kajiura sidekick) Concert was decent, and my sister liked it.
-The Momoi concert was the most organized and "best" concert in AX. Too bad it was the concert with the smallest attendance.
-Bought a lot of box sets. Only 35$ for thinpacks now, that's within my range for buying series.
-Did I mention Aya Hirano is cute? I won't deny that it might also be the age factor (being one year younger than me), but if it weren't for her remarkable enthusiasm and cuteness she would have never charmed me as much as she has right now. :V
Maybe more, if I can think up more later.
-Aya Hirano is the cutest seiyuu I have met so far, and probably will be the cutest seiyuu ever. While I still like KOTOKO and eufonius better in terms of singing, Aya has everyone beat in terms of personality, (normal) voice, and basically being an idol. Her (incredibly high) energetic nature is just like... dangerously cute for some reason. While other seiyuus might pretend to be cute, for whatever reason I find that the way she acts is as if she's genuinely excited and curious about America and her American fans, and that excitement is terribly incredibly cute for some reason.
-Aya Hirano likes cake, Yuki Goto likes alcohol, and the voice actor for Nagato likes chocolate.
- quite a lot of stuff bought. There was a lot of 2 dollar manga that me and my sister jumped on and pretty much bought the entire shelf.
-Orskaband (sp?) is cool but only because they have a trumpet, saxophone, and trombone player in their band. Unique!
-savage genius was really good, but unfortunately I was worrying through most of the concert that I wouldn't be able to get a good seat at the SOS concert to enjoy it thoroughly. I bought one of their albums though.
-the SOS concert, in the meantime, was the most poorly organized concert that ever existed. There was a 1 and a half hour delay, then when the concert finally started we find out that about half of the "concert" was just the Japanese and American VAs reciting lines from the anime. In what little music they had left, Hirano Aya and the voice actor for Nagato (I highly apologize but I cannot remember her name) both were lagging in their singing, that is, they started their singing a bit later than they were supposed to. Not only that, but the VA for Nagato also forgot some of her lines from her songs.
If concerts were graded on a 1-10 scale, this concert would have gotten a -22 except Hirano Aya was there, so that adds +100 to the concert scale. :V
-Chiaki Ishikawa (or the Yuki Kajiura sidekick) Concert was decent, and my sister liked it.
-The Momoi concert was the most organized and "best" concert in AX. Too bad it was the concert with the smallest attendance.
-Bought a lot of box sets. Only 35$ for thinpacks now, that's within my range for buying series.
-Did I mention Aya Hirano is cute? I won't deny that it might also be the age factor (being one year younger than me), but if it weren't for her remarkable enthusiasm and cuteness she would have never charmed me as much as she has right now. :V
Maybe more, if I can think up more later.
29.5.07
Fanime
I should talk more about fanime but I probably won't because I have drained up all my BSing skills into my Writing 340 class that I must take over the summer. Therefore, once again I present to you, a brief overview of what happened at fanime!
1. Met PJBW. Pwned him in EFZ, didn't get him to play touhou though. :(
2. Found out the 3 Japanese voice actors from Haruhi are coming to AX! Though I could have found that out without going to fanime too.
3. Went to Industry Panels. Stuff got licensed. Only thing that really perked my ears was Shuffle, though that was kind of old. Still surprised Shuffle got licensed, though.
4. Went to a Pangya panel, purely because they had an awesome music video using KOTOKO songs. The game looks fun, I might try and play it some time. But it also seems like a waste of money, and I think there are set characters rather than customizable ones like RO so :/...
5. Went to some Anime Blogging panels. Interesting to note that my personal blog is more sophisticated in anime reviews than 99% of other anime blogs (which usually just give EVIL SPOILERS AND SCREENCAPS)
6. Went to 4chan panel. Think /b/. Enough said.
7. Amazingly, I bought stuff when I thought I told myself I would never buy stuff. BUT I FOUND 2 DOLLAR STELLVIA MANGA AND 30 DOLLAR ENTIRE SET OF GALAXY ANGEL SEASON 1 ;o; WHY MUST I BE TORMENTED LIKE THIS!!
1. Met PJBW. Pwned him in EFZ, didn't get him to play touhou though. :(
2. Found out the 3 Japanese voice actors from Haruhi are coming to AX! Though I could have found that out without going to fanime too.
3. Went to Industry Panels. Stuff got licensed. Only thing that really perked my ears was Shuffle, though that was kind of old. Still surprised Shuffle got licensed, though.
4. Went to a Pangya panel, purely because they had an awesome music video using KOTOKO songs. The game looks fun, I might try and play it some time. But it also seems like a waste of money, and I think there are set characters rather than customizable ones like RO so :/...
5. Went to some Anime Blogging panels. Interesting to note that my personal blog is more sophisticated in anime reviews than 99% of other anime blogs (which usually just give EVIL SPOILERS AND SCREENCAPS)
6. Went to 4chan panel. Think /b/. Enough said.
7. Amazingly, I bought stuff when I thought I told myself I would never buy stuff. BUT I FOUND 2 DOLLAR STELLVIA MANGA AND 30 DOLLAR ENTIRE SET OF GALAXY ANGEL SEASON 1 ;o; WHY MUST I BE TORMENTED LIKE THIS!!
11.5.07
2 vs 2 battle in game (Pokemon) = Heal Slave (RO)
The general concept of 2 person vs 2 person battling isn't original nor that great, but the fact that the pokemon get completely recovered right after battle IS FREAKIN WIN!!!
I SWEAR I CAN GET LIKE 20 LEVELS EVERY TIME I GET A TEAMMATE PARTNER PERSON!
I SWEAR I CAN GET LIKE 20 LEVELS EVERY TIME I GET A TEAMMATE PARTNER PERSON!
7.5.07
durr durrr darrrrrrr seifuku!!
How to lose 1 week of cramming and studying in one and a half minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtkQdOP2rt8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtkQdOP2rt8
4.5.07
A bunch of anime I watched 3 weeks ago...
But never had time to write up on it. Consequently, my BSing capability isn't exactly super great right now, so most of these will just be like a few lines of approve or don't approve. I can't even remember all the anime I watched that weekend, I swear I finished like 3 series. One of them was probably insignificant, that's why I can't remember it...
Aria the Animation: Overall one of the best, one of my new favorite series. The series is quite the "slice of life" anime, only its a slice of life in Utopia: everything in here is perfect and goes perfectly. All the people are remarkably kind, everyone is good, its like the story of something after it finishes with "happily ever after" because all this anime is is happiness, joy, and tranquility. It has the same flavor as Stellvia of the Universe, only even Stellvia at times showed a more realistic point of view, that sometimes people can turn against others for their own thoughts and feelings. Aria is like, everyone is a good person, everyone helps each other, and everyone has their name start with A. Definately the best series I've seen in a while.
Gargoyle of the Yoshinagas: This is also a really good series that I finished up over the weekend. It was great all the way to the end, though I wish there was more. I currently can't find ANYTHING on it (whether it be the OP/ED, any manga or game relation, or whatnot) except for the anime, which makes me really disappointed.
Lucky Star: I began it, the first half seemed kind of longwinded and eventually was getting tedious, but the second half was some what of a comedy relief.
...
Opening was like Opium for my Optic Nerve.
...
The Third: I watched through half of it. The animation looks good, but the story is getting quite mundane and boring. I dunno, it seems kind of interesting but... its... boring at times. It seems like.
Sola: Has potential, especially with the whole undead thing. Seems to be a trend lately. THEY ALL COPIED FROM MY PLAGAL IDEA, I TELL YOU!!!
That's all I can remember for now. Now, I SHOULD be getting back to finals... >.>
Aria the Animation: Overall one of the best, one of my new favorite series. The series is quite the "slice of life" anime, only its a slice of life in Utopia: everything in here is perfect and goes perfectly. All the people are remarkably kind, everyone is good, its like the story of something after it finishes with "happily ever after" because all this anime is is happiness, joy, and tranquility. It has the same flavor as Stellvia of the Universe, only even Stellvia at times showed a more realistic point of view, that sometimes people can turn against others for their own thoughts and feelings. Aria is like, everyone is a good person, everyone helps each other, and everyone has their name start with A. Definately the best series I've seen in a while.
Gargoyle of the Yoshinagas: This is also a really good series that I finished up over the weekend. It was great all the way to the end, though I wish there was more. I currently can't find ANYTHING on it (whether it be the OP/ED, any manga or game relation, or whatnot) except for the anime, which makes me really disappointed.
Lucky Star: I began it, the first half seemed kind of longwinded and eventually was getting tedious, but the second half was some what of a comedy relief.
...
Opening was like Opium for my Optic Nerve.
...
The Third: I watched through half of it. The animation looks good, but the story is getting quite mundane and boring. I dunno, it seems kind of interesting but... its... boring at times. It seems like.
Sola: Has potential, especially with the whole undead thing. Seems to be a trend lately. THEY ALL COPIED FROM MY PLAGAL IDEA, I TELL YOU!!!
That's all I can remember for now. Now, I SHOULD be getting back to finals... >.>
27.4.07
MOETAN IS GOING TO BECOME AN ANIME
LOLOL PREPARE FOR JAPANESE ENGRISH LEARNING
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-04-27/moetan-english-teaching-anime-to-air-in-july-in-japan
in other news, I haven't updated my blog for a while. I should review the 10 or so anime I watched that one weekend I came back, but I should also be finishing up my research lab report and preparing for finals then attempting to get a DS and pokemon Diamond. :p So, the reviews might take a while...
MEANWHILE PREPARE TO LEARN ENGRISH FOR SAKE OF JAPAN OTAKU! COME JULY!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-04-27/moetan-english-teaching-anime-to-air-in-july-in-japan
in other news, I haven't updated my blog for a while. I should review the 10 or so anime I watched that one weekend I came back, but I should also be finishing up my research lab report and preparing for finals then attempting to get a DS and pokemon Diamond. :p So, the reviews might take a while...
MEANWHILE PREPARE TO LEARN ENGRISH FOR SAKE OF JAPAN OTAKU! COME JULY!
20.4.07
Methods and Materials
WRITING UP THE ENTIRE PROCEDURE FOR AN EXPERIMENT WHERE YOU ONLY DID A PART OF THE WHOLE THING IS RIDICULOUS. It feels like I've cheated the whole way since I only ran Western Blots and did practically nothing else in this lab.
*sigh*
I want my own experiment.
*sigh*
I want my own experiment.
10.4.07
Laboratory Work Stuff
I haven't been watching anime lately because I've been swamped with schoolwork (however this weekend I'm going home so I'm going to finish up a few series and start few new ones that are coming out right now). On the other hand, some interesting events regarding my lab work have come up which are worth noting.
First off is that I received a Fellowship award of 5000$ just for submitting a filled out application and a one page BSed paper on what I'm doing in my lab already (although its supposed to be what I'm supposed to be doing during the summer...) Consequently I never thought of this as THAT big of a deal, I mean, ok, 5000$ means my parents can pay 5000$ less on me and my school fees, if not needed now, then in the future. :p However, my lab director made an incredibly big deal out of it and got my entire lab excited over my award. I've been thinking on why he might be so happy about it, and I think has to do possibly with the fact that the lab also recieves 2000$ into the research account to "support my project" :x. Well, all's good and well in the lab, and as long as everyone else is happy, I can feel happy too. :p
Secondly, I'm presenting at a public Undergraduate Symposium at USC tomorrow. Outside. In the Sun. For 2 hours (would have been 3 if I didn't have class). So I will probably be waiting outside feeling dumb and hoping no one asks me a question about my poster which I don't know the answer to... that would be embarrassing... well I'm not sure, consequently we'll have to see how tomorrow goes. In the (highly unlikely) event that people from USC read this blog, if you wish to inquire me of my research which I supposedly have extensive knowledge on, check out the symposium, located in front of the Trojan statue in USC.
...I am definitely looking forward to the weekend where I can relax and watch anime the entire day. :(
First off is that I received a Fellowship award of 5000$ just for submitting a filled out application and a one page BSed paper on what I'm doing in my lab already (although its supposed to be what I'm supposed to be doing during the summer...) Consequently I never thought of this as THAT big of a deal, I mean, ok, 5000$ means my parents can pay 5000$ less on me and my school fees, if not needed now, then in the future. :p However, my lab director made an incredibly big deal out of it and got my entire lab excited over my award. I've been thinking on why he might be so happy about it, and I think has to do possibly with the fact that the lab also recieves 2000$ into the research account to "support my project" :x. Well, all's good and well in the lab, and as long as everyone else is happy, I can feel happy too. :p
Secondly, I'm presenting at a public Undergraduate Symposium at USC tomorrow. Outside. In the Sun. For 2 hours (would have been 3 if I didn't have class). So I will probably be waiting outside feeling dumb and hoping no one asks me a question about my poster which I don't know the answer to... that would be embarrassing... well I'm not sure, consequently we'll have to see how tomorrow goes. In the (highly unlikely) event that people from USC read this blog, if you wish to inquire me of my research which I supposedly have extensive knowledge on, check out the symposium, located in front of the Trojan statue in USC.
...I am definitely looking forward to the weekend where I can relax and watch anime the entire day. :(
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