unmei ka? iya..sadame

Wow, that was a long time

2006-06-28T18:40:00.000+09:00

4/25/06 was the date of my last entry, so that means I have about 420 days worth of life to recap. Let's see if I can do it in under five sentences:

--Came back to the warm weather of So. CA
--Worked some small jobs, eventually leading to a medium-size temporary one at a legal firm doing paralegal work (while doing freelance pieces for 1up.com and gamebrink.com)
--Explored the wild side of E3 as an official media journalist for 1up.com
(Picture: Me, some awesome friendly dudes from 1up, and Atlus's Kazuma Kaneko [2nd to last guy on right])

--Ate lots of good food you just can't get in Japan, missed a lot of good food you just can't get in the US
--Subtitled the final 30 episodes (out of 50) of the best TV show ever made: Eureka Seven for the good of the public.

Now I can actually restart my blog again without it confusingly jumping from the cold depths of Aomori Japan to the OMG IT IS HOT TODAY Southern California!

Oh and a lot of the old picture links have died because I had to delete stuff off my photobucket account many months back and I've been too lazy to re-up the correct pictures (if I even still have them ^^;). Might be good weekend project when I get some time.

Back...sorta

2005-04-16T23:52:00.000+09:00

See the animal in it's cage that you built,
Are you sure which side you're on?
Better not look too closely in the end,
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the saftey of the life you have built,
Everything where it belongs.
Feel the hollowness inside of your home,
and it's all...right where it belongs.

What if everything around you...isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know...is an elaborate dream?
If you look at your reflection...is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks...
Would you find yourself...find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the world's inside of your head?
Just creations of your own?
The devils and your gods all the living and the dead,
And you really are alone.
You can live in this illusion,
You can choose to believe.
You keep looking but you can't find the words,
Now you're hiding in a dream.

What if everything around you...isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know...is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection...is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself...find yourself afraid to see?

--"Right Where it Belongs" from Nine Inch Nails' "With Teeth".

Well, the winter has ended (I think) and the spring starts next week or so when the cherry blossoms in Hirosaki bloom. So right now both the season and the life of JETs are in a transitional period. School has started but because of mandatory introduction stuff there aren't too many classes at the moment. So while it's nice to be teaching again there's also a lot of boredom afloat at the work place.

Wrote a review for Atlus' Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2. A game that's taught me a decent bit about buddhism and provided me with one of the most interesting stories that I'll remember for a long long time.

Mt. Iwake during the final months of winter.

Updates coming eventually

2005-02-12T17:52:00.000+09:00

Wow, it's a been a while since I posted anything. Guess I have the ever snowing winter to blame for my lack of time recently.

Anyhow not re-contracting, moving to Tokyo instead. I'll write more in a few days I guess.

時代の流れに、我らしか漂わない

2005-01-17T13:38:00.000+09:00

"In the current of an era, we can only drift along..."

Seems kinda of fitting for both the current political/world view, and the life of a JET ^^; With time comes change.

The long time avatar, DJPANDA (courtesy of Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu)

has been retired and replaced with DJNEKO (courtesy of Moon Phase)

Another sweeping change is that I'm back in school again! Though this time from the teacher's point of view. I'm enjoying the start of up this quarter quite a bit as unlike my first quarter I actually no what's going on ;) Even the weather has been nice lately with sunny skies clearing away the snow a tiny tiny bit.

So as the invitation to stay another year here hangs around my neck, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my future. But since I'm not sure where I stand on that yet, I'll just write up a bit about what's new and good in entertainment over the last month:

Films:

Haven't been to the theaters much. But I did manage to catch the limited showing of 雲のむこう、約束の場所　(Kumo no mukou, yaksoku no basho -The place promised in our early days-). The first full-length film from the one man animator Makoto Shinkai who made a name for himself with 星の声 (Hoshi no koe, voices of a distant star). Unlike Hoshi no Koe which was animated entirely by Shinkai (with a runtime of 30mins), this time Shinkai enlisted in staff members and spent 2-3 years to create a full 1:30min feature film. Like Hoshi no Koe, the art design and backgrounds are gorgeous and Shinkai's use of CG effects to work around a low budget are excellent. The voice acting is pretty good, though the use of some big name voice actors is questionable since it kinda kills the low-budget art house feel. The music done once again by his friend Tenmon is pleasant sounding. Yet overall the movie is a lot weaker than Hoshi no Koe or Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko (his other 5 min short film). The reason is simply that while being an excellent animator, his writing skills are at the level of a high school kid from the poetry club. While this works for short films (Hoshi no Koe took the idea of cell-phone e-mails in future space travel and the time-effect that distance brings), when trying to go for 2 hour films it has problems. Shinkai loves two things: Poetry & Hard-core sci-fi. So the plot comes off as a simplistic yet overly-explained (with all kinds of military/science scenes) story spotted about with random poetic breaks. Still an enjoyable film, but I can't say I didn't come away slightly disappointed. Especially as the trailer for the film was utterly fantastic :\ 3.25/4

In Kung Fu Hustle, the new film by Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, God of Cookery, etc...), Chow once again plays the lead character in this action/comedy. Basically it was a good film with great cinematography, awesome action (though Ong Bak this is not), and some nice parodies. Unlike a lot of his other films that are based around bizarre off the wall humor, KFH relies more on parodies of everything from Gangs of New York to Dragonball. Personally I like his goofier stuff better but KFH was still worth watching even at 1000yen prices. 3/4

Checked out the live-action version of Cutie Honey directed by Evangelion creator/director Hideaki Anno. Anno has shown in his other dips into live-action that he is a very talented and artistic individual. So I was looking forward to what he would do with an anime->live-action film. Unfortunately the answer is "not much". While there are some nice moments from a visual standpoint, and the cinematography is rock solid, the main actress is the worst actress I've seen in film and quite possible the most annoying person ever. Besides that the film is basically just a theatrical ultraman type movie with people in rubber suits fighting. It's very tongue in cheek, and quite funny at times but in the end it's a very forgettable music. PS. The remixes of the main song do rock though ;P 2.5/4

Sekai no chushin de ai wo sakebu was the big Japanese film of 2004. When I first got here in July I noticed posters everywhere, in the winter theaters were doing special 2nd showings of it around here and, As the dvd release grew near I saw endless commercials on tv. So since the Japanese movie-goers usually have at least decent taste and the standard edition of the dvd was cheap, I decided to check it out. Hmmm...it was ok I guess. There wasn't really much that stuck out about the film. It was just your typical depressing "aware" style Japanese melo-drama. Nothing was really bad about it, but nothing was really great either (well I guess the main actress was pretty good). A decent watch 3/4.

Books:
Yep, would you believe it!? I'm actually reading :D

Miyabe Miyuki, a popular Japanese writer, was greatly moved by the 2001 PS2 game ICO (viewed by many as the greatest artistic achievement in the realm of games). So much, that he decided he wanted to flesh out the little bits of story in the game into a full novel, and thus the 600 page epic novel ICO -Castle in the Mist- was born. As a huge fan of the game I decided to pick up the book when I first arrived in Japan only to start reading it recently. I'm about 100 pages in at the moment and so far it reads quite nicely. The descriptive yet kinda of floaty and vague imagery of it mixed with the slower more relaxed pacing gives it a feel that matches the game quite well. At 97 pages in, the book is just getting to the opening of the game so it'll be interesting how it handles the actual game puzzle aspect of exploring the castle in literature form.

entry 1 - end, turn to entry 2

生き残った者が跡を継ぐ生き残ったものがボスの称号を受け継ぐ

2005-01-17T13:00:00.000+09:00

"The one that remains will follow in the steps. The one that remains will inherit the title of 'Boss'"

Games:

It arrived, it was finished twice, it was brilliant. Really there's so much that could be said about Hideo Kojima's latest masterpiece Metal Gear Solid 3 that I won't bother trying to start. While it was different than I expected, on my 2nd playthrough especially when I view it as what it actually is I came away more impressed than probably any game has left me since MGS2. Even the excellent Half-life 2 just can't stand up to the perfection of MGS3. I also read the 400 page collection of essays/interviews book that came with the LE and that only enriched my understanding and respect for how Kojima incorperated the issues that encompassed the cold war into his own spy story. 10/10

On a different Metal Gear related note. I put a lot of time into the PSP Metal Gear Acid (According to Kojima, Acid refers to melting away the fixed perceptions of the Metal Gear series). Though the game is done by a completely different staff than the MGS games and is now a turn-based, card-based, strategy rpg...it still retains the MGS feel quite well. The game is all about laying traps and sneaking around enemies and is a very fun cat & mouse chase done through a chess match style. The story is very MGish and is a very interesting serious mystery thriller. Change can sometimes be a good thing :) Not finished but so far a 8.5/10

Donkey Konga: Jungle Beat is an AWESOME AWESOME game. The game is an old school platformer (think Sonic 2 mixed with Super Mario World) that replaces using a controller and is instead controlled through the actions of a pair of drums (left drum, right drum, both drums, clap). Despite the unorthodox control scheme, it actually works like a charm! Within minutes the controls feel natural and the speed and level of the design is just fantastic. Consisting of 12 worlds (2 levels + boss) off the bat, and 6 hidden worlds (unlocking through getting high scores on levels) gives the game a good length with lots of replayability. One of the best platformers in ages and just a AAA game. 9.5/10

+

=
^____^

Gran Turismo 4 is same old Gran Turismo but with a really nice new physics engine that gives the cars an incredibly close-to-life feeling. With 50 tracks and 650 cars there's a lot of driving to be had when I get the need to drive on something that's not ice. The Logitech GT Force Pro wheel is a huge step forward as it's the first console wheel that allows both 900 degree rotation and TRUE FORCE FEEBACK. This really can't be stated enough, TFF is the coolest thing for racing games. Based on the amount of g-force hitting your car at any given time the wheel reacts as it would in real life. Just like in real life when you're on a bumpy road and you have to hang on to the wheel as it jitters around this does the same thing. In fact driving on Ice tracks in the game with an Impreza feels frighteningly similar to what I experience each day here in my Impreza. Hell, I'm even learning things about when to downshift/brake/accellerate on ice and dirt. The wheel and it's TFF will also be supported in the upcoming Enthusia racing by Konami which is going to be the first game to have a CLUTCH! It's too bad there's no wheel out there with an actual clutch pedal...yet :P 9/10

What I'm currently playing at the moment. Tales of Rebirth is the 3rd Tales of... game this console generation and like Tales of Destiny II it's pretty much an all 2D rpg. The Tales of... series made the transition to 3D with excellent results in the GC Tales of Symphonia, so it feels a little archiac going back to the 2D realm. That being said the battle system is still fun as always and the story is still dumb as always :\ While not one of the best rpgs I've played it's still fun and will keep me busy until the 27th when Resident Evil 4, Digital Devil Saga 2, Radiata Stories, and A.C.E. arrive. (Another Century's Episode. Super Robot Wars Banpresto teams up with Armored Core developer From Soft to make a crossover Super Robot 3d action game).

好きか嫌いか。。。そのどちらかでないといけないのか？

2005-01-17T07:20:00.000+09:00

Speaking of music, I've been listening to the new unlabeled Beck album and wow, really impressive. Pairing back together with the Dust Bros. has given it an Odelay 2-ish vibe. I'm hearing these tracks aren't even the final mixes and for just early works they are already fantastic. Can't wait for the full album in March.

Anime:

Just finished the 2nd and final season of Otogizoushi and boy was it terrible. Production IG did a great job at taking a very good Heian-era story and turning it into the world's most boring tale of reincarnation ever. I find it hard to believe the writers between the 2 seasons were actually one and the same. Season 2 was just so so stupid and boring...ugh. I'm just going to pretend there was ever a 2nd season.

Soukyuu no Fafner, a show that while not a ground-breaking show had great production values with a powerful and well-composed soundtrack and pretty good voice acting. The story was a bit weak and the series was mainly just an Evangelion rip-off...but the show was never 'bad' persay, and from a directorial point it was always a pleasure to watch so I guess I'd just call it popcorn entertainment.

On a more pleasant subject, Mai-Hime has gone into high gear as it gets a little past the half-way point. The show is Sunrise's big budget anime for at least 1/2 of 2005 and it shows. The quality of the animation is incredible and the action direction is handled with style. Tanaguchi Goro (Mugen no Ryvius, S.cry.ed, Planetes) is a "creative producer" on Mai-hime and it's really starting to show with how the series handles intense build-ups and just plain awesome pay-offs. With the cool GaoGaiGar-ish mecha designs, this is basically similar to S.cry.ed with girl characters and a little less badass-ness. The music by Yuki Kajiura fits very nicely with the high-budget everything else. Depending on where the show goes at this point, it could be one of the big shows of 2005.

So since Gundam SEED Destiny has managed to be not only the worst Gundam show ever, but even just one of the worst anime series in a while (doesn't look like it's getting better either. "Let's just fix the show by giving the main character a black version of Freedom" @_@)...I've finally got around to watching 1985 classic Zeta Gundam:

...and I'll be darned if it isn't as good as everyone's been saying. The 50ep epic is known by most Gundam fans as the best Gundam series to date. So far 1/5th in, I don't know if I can agree with that, but I can acknowledge that the series is damn good. Though my favorite mecha designs are from the 0083 OAV, the designs here are pretty solid in themselves. Can't wait to watch more :D

More snow

2005-01-10T15:01:00.000+09:00

Two weeks in Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka was a nice time to relax...as is anytime you are not in Aomori ^^; Here's a rundown of the trip:

Akihabara:

Many trips were made to my favorite street in the world :D

My brother as he snaps a shot at the National Museum in Tokyo. Was a pretty nice museum though the focus was pretty broad and there wasn't too much that interested me (Heian era fan personally).

Our trip to the Palette Town of Odaiba! They had an interesting history of cars showcase museum at one corner which was a bit odd (50/60's american tv show footage running on screens behind the cars), but they did have a Dolorian! They also had a mall that was basically stolen from Caesar's Palace complete with the fake sky.

Located near the mall of the future was the station of the future. I think they're still working on getting the tech to live up to the name.

Cool store in Osaka. Otherwise I found Denden town to be pretty tiny compared to the massive Akihabara. Also checked out the Universal City Walk while in Osaka but the Wolfgang Puck's pizza was sadly still Japanese pizza ;_;

Some people will get this ;)

Asakusa during first snow in Tokyo! Looks a lot nicer with snow, though it was a bit cold. See I had thought it would be WARM in Tokyo compared to Aomori so I packed warm stuff...yet the snow followed me there >_<

Asakusa on New Years day. People lining up for Hatsumoude or first shrine visit of the year. Good weather.

"evacuation field" in Ueno...odd but pleasant.

This was standing outside the western art museum in Ueno.

and then I returned to the snow land of Aomori. Lately it's been snowing non-stop and the wind is pretty strong. Been going out once a day to knock the snow hanging off the roof down and dig out my doorway. At first dealing with that and digging out my car at the school daily was a bit daunting. But I've been improving my shovel skills and shoveling is getting fun! Only problem now is the wind which keeps changing directions while I'm shoveling snow off the roof, so the snow always seems to fall down into my face >_<

A normal street corner around here.

My car about 24 hours since last drive/cleaning.

20mins later, my car after shoveling out and cleaning. Now in drivable form!

The mall at night in the snow. That's not gas in the picture it's the damn snow flying around with the wind >_<

What I see doing the 15 min walk back from the school to my house each night. EVIL WIND. Seriously I like the snow but the wind is the worst enemy I have faced in my life.

My house after 30 mins of digging and knocking snow off the roof. The snow on the side has almost overtaken the fence around the yard. Can't even fit through the doorway as of today, so it's up and over the fence each day. Maybe I should just knock the fence down...hmmm..... ;)

Short delay

2005-01-07T10:08:00.000+09:00

Had a good winter vaction in Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka with my brother. I'll have pictures up later, but I've been too worn out at home from shoveling and walking to really do much at the house besides lie down and watch movies in the evening. Expect a long real update this weekend.

snow

2004-12-22T13:33:00.000+09:00

And in ushered the new era....

2004-12-14T02:31:00.000+09:00

Too little time too much to say, but I'll just make it clear. Sony just came in an in 1 day set the direction of portable gaming for the next 10 years. The PSP is the nicest piece of hardware I've ever held in my hands and it does everything. Want to listen to your mp3s? Sound quality is equal or better than ipods. Store and look at your photos you've taken with a digital camera? Screen quality is amazing. Want to watch movies/videos? Works like a charm.

The interface is very user friendly and very capable and because the system uses Sony memory sticks, you can just pop them out and put them in computer to transfer files back and forth. There's even a usb hookup to connect straight to your computer.

Wireless Lan allows for both great multiplayer ability, but also soon it will be able to connect to the internet through wireless routers and you'll be able to browse and download stuff straight to your system. There's already an "online update" selection avaible in the interface so in the future they can update the firmware if needed.

Everyone in Japan wants one. If you take it out in public people keep coming up to you asking you all about it. Or on a train they'll move around to get a better position to look over your shoulder. You can't blame them, one look at the system and it sells itself. It's just utterly amazing.

People camping out overnight in Tokyo. For good reason too as the machine is selling on ebay and at all the import stores for ~$600 a unit ($200 retail here). I know a few people who picked up a few extra units to sell and have already made over a thousand in profit on them ^^;;

Ridge Racers is very very good. Excellent presentation, 24 tracks remade from all the previous RR games and 40+ music tracks also from the previous games. Control is great, graphics are 60fps and excellent and the music and sound is perfect. Add in 8 player wireless multiplayer and you have an incredible launch title.

Lumines is the new Tetris. Take a deep and new take on puzzle games, add in some of the best music you've ever heard that lets you add to the beat with your actions and you have the formula for the most addicting game ever made. By the creater of Rez (a game that combined 3d on-rail shooters with music), Lumines is a complete masterpiece. I must have put about 7 hours straight into this on the launch day and I really haven't touched the other games much as when your not playing Lumines you're thinking "why am I not playing Lumines right now?" :P

Minna no Golf Portable (known in the US as Hot Shots Golf). Only tried it for a few minutes but it's a solid entry in the best golf series there is. But between RR and Lumines I doubt I'll be touching this for a while.

Ok, will be back with real life in a future update.

Some big events, some small ones

2004-12-02T21:06:00.000+09:00

Well for about 3 days straight early this week it snowed. The snow was nice to look at and much more comfortable to live in than the heavy rainfall that surrounded it. Then after a few days I awoke one day to find that it was all gone just as quickly as it had appeared.

Currently it's nice and clear outside with decent temperatures around 3-4 degrees Celcius.

--------
Besides currently roaming the realm of DQVIII on my boat and hours spent with friends both near and far in..

..Half-life 2 Deathmatch (which rocks btw). Today marked another interesting game day in Japan:

Today was the Nintendo DS launch in Japan. Unlike the Dragon Quest VIII launch this time no one seemed to care ^^;; At the opening of the local store here in Kizukuri, there was exactly ONE person standing around waiting by the store. But then 2 mins before the store opened a taxi came and picked them up. During the first 10 mins the store was open about two people came in and bought a DS, but unlike the US where the system sold out real fast and is now hard to find, it's pretty much everywhere now in plentiful stock.

My first impressions of the actual unit were "Wow, what the hell prototype were they showing at E3!?" Basically the DS prototype I played at E3 in May was not very impressive or interesting so I'm quite surprised the unit turned out well. Here's a breakdown on my thoughts:

+The screens are nice size and good quality. BACKLIGHTING!!!!!!!! yay, even the GBA SP only had front-lighting so it looked nothing like this. I think the last system with backlighting was the sega Nomad but anyhow it makes everything look really good.
+The color pallette and resolution is pretty awesome.
+The speakers are nice and loud unlike every other home system out there. Awesome.
+Touch screen is pretty accurate and works well.
+GBA games look really fantastic due to the backlighting. But it's kinda annoying that they only use 1 screen so you have a dead screen the whole time.

-The sound quality is ok. Unlike the horrible sound of the GBA, it's even better than SNES/SFC sound (it has BASS!) but it's below N64/PS1 level sound. It's sufficient but with the CD/DVD quality sound of the PSP in a week it's nothing to write home about.
-The D-pad sucks. For some reason it's long and skinny like a cross which is a little annoying. Playing GBA games on it can be a little tougher to control than on the GBA.
-It's too big. Not when you're holding the unit necessarily, but the fact is that it doesn't fit comfortably in your pocket and if it does it's gonna pull your pants down because it's heavy. So unlike the GBA which you can keep in your pocket and pull out on trains, with the DS you've really gotta keep it in a backpack/bag.

Ok, now as for impressions of the launch games:

Sawaru (Touch!) Made in Wario: Pretty much the system seller here in Japan. Just as Mawaru (Twisted!) Made was a fresh take on mini-games using the motion sensor, here we get a new game of mini-games that revolve completely around using the touch screen. Really creative games and great 2d graphics show off the system well.

It's Mario 64 with new levels and mini-games. Control is wierd and I've found playing with the pen, though an awkward idea, works the best. Not much too say as I didn't mess around with it much but it's nice having Mario 64 since I never did get around to beating it at the Nguyen's house.

Kimi no tame nara shineru (I could die for you 'aka Feel the Magic' in the US). Another mini-game collection (mini-games are good when you're on the go). This time with stylish visuals and bizarre yet cool music. Seems fun but not as good at Made in Wario.

Mr. Driller Drill Spirits. Umm, it's Mr. Driller not much more to say. I mainly picked this up as the US version got screwed by having an entire story/adventure mode removed because Namco US didn't want to bother to translate it. Also the Japanese version allows 5 player multiplayer with only 1 cartridge something else the US version is lacking.

Band Brothers. This is basically a poor man's Beatmania where you can play any one instrument of a song in Beatmania style or you can have an 8 player jam fest where each person does 1 instrument and together you make a song. The main single player part though is just like Beatmania but the song list isn't as good. It does have some cool old-school nintendo medolies and there is a mode where you can write your own songs and then trade them with other people so they can try to beat your song. It also uses the built in mic. Supposedly you can just hum a tune into the machine and it will pick it up and write it into the correct sheet lyrics...ummm...yea....not having good luck with that so far ^^;; Still a nice little niche experimental title.

So that was the Nintendo DS launch. It came was hyped out with a bang and played out with a whisper. Seems like a solid fun system that is the successor to the GBA despite Nintendo saying otherwise. Now it's on to the PSP and seeing how that fairs.
--

Nothing says Japan, like national conformity

2004-11-27T18:28:00.000+09:00

Well just in time for the Dragon Quest launch, the weather became hell here as winds reached high speeds knocking things over all night Fri and as of now on Sat are still blowing pretty strong. Rain + Hail were pouring down all last night into Sat morning, and the sun was barely present. So I wasn't sure what to expect when heading to the store at 6:40am this morning but here is how it went:

6:45am, everyone is waiting in their car since the weather is terrible.

7am, the door opens and everyone rushes in.

The first customers of the day buy their games.

As I was leaving I would see car after car pull up and someone jump at. While it wasn't hundred's of people it was still pretty impressive to see the local folks braving the storm in the early morning to get their game.

Though I'll admit we Aomori folks didn't stand up to the Tokyo lines:

The 300 person line at 7am in front of Tsutsuya. More pics of the Tokyo lines can be found here.

The power of line-ups is strong in Japan at the moment. Thursday will be the line-ups for the Nintendo DS and then a week later on Sunday will be the line-ups for the Sony PSP. Hopefully Aomori weather looks more kindly on the game industry in the following weeks.

Towel

2004-11-25T22:36:00.000+09:00

So when I was at the Go!Go!7188 concert in Aomori city last night, I picked up a page of stickers from the buying area since they only had one shirt in XL (and despite Japan 'supposedly' being full of small people, I still where a M here just like I do in the states), and about 5 hand towels....

Hand towels are pretty popular items here in Japan as many bathroom sinks don't have paper towels so you must resort to flailing your hands in the air, your personal towel, or stealthly wiping them on the shirt of the guy next to you. So it's easy to understand why there are many hand towels for sale in Japan.

Yet I have to question the fact that every band/movie/tv show/game has their own hand towels. Now as far as I know the idea behind say a band t-shirt is that you want to express your interest in the band to others, in a way expressing yourself. So now when you go a buy a band hand towel it's kinda odd. I mean when you're in the restroom washing your hands with a bunch of other guys, are you going to be proud to be expressing yourself and your interests to the people around you? Maybe you are, but I dunno, it just seems like one of those things (logo hand towels) that people just accepted as being 'cool' without every thinking of the practicality of the items.

So besides noticing the large amount of hand towels for sale the rest of the show was okish ^^; The sound setup was pretty good and the band played well but they were playing like it was routine rather than going crazy and really getting into the music. This was pretty apparent as during the first 20 mins of the show the crowd was going crazy smashing into each other in a Japanese-toned-down-polite-mosh-pit (which in a place that only holds less than 300 people is still pretty good); Yet you could tell that the energy was from the fans who were excited to be there. At the 30 min mark the crowd really started dying down and by an hour in most people were just kinda swaying or standing still. If a band doesn't put their all into playing, the crowd won't be infused with energy. Basically all the bands I'd seen in the Arabaki show went insane on stage doing crazy solos, jumping around and stumbling into things, and screaming until their voice died. Besides the drummer, the 2 leading women in the band didn't even seem like they were breaking a sweat. As I teacher it looked to me like the lead singer, Yuu, was doing her "I'm taking a test and trying to remember all the answers from the book last night because I just want to pass this test and go home" face. They were times when the band really got into their songs and at those moments the crowd would react. But overall it was fun, but not a very amazing experience. It also doesn't help that the show was based around their new album which after hearing it live definitely is not the kind of music meant for live play. When they broke into a jazz/swing sounding song, this rock/punk audience was left standing confused as to what they were supposed to be doing. I guess I'd say the show was like a 3/4.

Last week I went to an ALT meeting in Hachinohe. As my first trip to Hachinohe I used the evening on the first night to go to the main Hachinohe train station and check out the area. Well after about 3-4 hours of walking I realized there wasn't much there and the actual city were stuff was, was near our hotel/meetings. Since the meeting was only 2 days and I had to do 4-5 hours of travel each way, I didn't really get much exploring done sadly. Maybe I'll go back again in the future, but it's not the most convinient place to visit money and travel-time wise.

New free mp3 is up at Hirasawa Susumu's webpage off his latest side project Kaku (Nuclear) P-model. Pretty entertaining, too bad you'd never be album to find this album in a store in Aomori :\ But that's what Amazon Japan is for! :P
You can get the song here: http://www.chaosunion.com/hirasawa/e/index.htm

On a sad note, I saw Studio Ghibli & Miyazaki Hayao's new animated film "Howl's Moving Castle". Why was it sad? Well in the past 20+ years I've enjoyed every film created by Studio Ghibli, yet now it seems like they finally did it. They made a bad movie ;_; Sure the animation is pretty, but the story is a complete mess. Character development is very weak and the story jumps around without ever giving much explanation. Couple that with an ending so awful that it's a slap in the face to all fans of the studio, and you have a movie that leaves you thinking "what went wrong?". Well the answer is probably not all that hard to find. For years on year Miyazaki has created great stories filled with likeable casts that have this magic Ghibli touch to them. Yet for the first time in his career, Miyazaki decided to try to adapt a novel rather than make his own story.

So I'd guess that the entire time Miyazaki was creating the script and storyboards, he was fighting between staying true to the book, and trying to make a Miyazaki movie. You see elements coming from his other films such as Nausicaa, Mononoke, Kiki's, Spirited Away; Yet the core story and characters just don't match up that well with the way he creates characters. I can see how when planning the film on paper it would've looked doable, but the fact is that the only way they could've made what they wanted is with an epic 3 hour film. Yet Howl's runs a little under 2 hours and thus feels like a whole lot is missing. It lacks the magic Ghibli touch, and is closer to a 2.5/4 than a 3/4 IMO and having to put 2.5 and Ghibli in the same sentence is a sad sad day.

--------------------

So after finishing Halo 2, Half-life 2, and Zelda: The Minish Cap over the last week or so it feels almost like the end of an era yet the beginning of a new one.

Halo 2 was a great improvement over the first game and it delivered intense combat, pretty decent level design, and a probably the best multiplayer you can experience online on a console right now. Yet I have to admit that despite playing it only a week ago I can barely remember anything about the game :\ All the cool moments were kinda of swept under the rug after experience Half-life 2.

Half-life 2 had a lot of expectations being the most hyped PC game since probably Doom 2. Yet for once a game really lived up to its hype and continued to impress throughout. The game has so much variety that it's always throwing something new at you to keep you from getting bored. The locations were gorgeous and huge, the combat in the later half of the game was pretty insane and kept you on your toes, the art direction was incredible with gorgeous textures and modeling, and even the music rocked when it was used. Plus the game was pretty long and satisfying IMO. On one hand it's kinda sad to see it end, but on the other hand this is only the beginning as this will be the game that the mod community will use as a base for pretty much all things great in the next 4-5 years. The physics system is just incredible and once a real multiplayer mod comes out, a lot of people will be showing up at work tired :)

Zelda was good as usual. I dunno, I've heard Zelda 3 A Link To the Past for SFC/SNES has aged badly and isn't that great of game anymore, but I still remember it being better than all the 2d Zelda games that have come after it. A few of the dungeons in Minish Cap were really impressive and only 1 really came off as average. Yet the overworld had way to much fetch quest stuff that just got annoying at times and hurt the pacing. It was a fun 8/10 game, but I'll look forward to the next console Zelda and hope it's more of a step forward.

So as all signs point to the Holidy season as already starting, we approach the biggest day in Japan this year. Christmas day? Nope.

Dragon Quest VIII is about to make headlines as the highest number of copies sold in 1 day of any game in the ENTIRE WORLD (which considering the population of Japan vs. US and UK is a pretty big feat) this saturday. The Dragon Quest series has been the largest franchise in the entire country since somewhere along the mid years of the series. In fact releasing Dragon Quest games once every 2-4 year became a huge problem for the society as millions of people would skip work or school on the opening day. So they kinda made an unofficial law that DQ games must be released on holidays or weekends. DQVIII is abiding by that law and stores are opening at 7am on saturday nationwide to sell the game. 2.5-3 million copies are being sent to the stores and everywhere is predicting 99% sell-through. I'll be there at 6:30am on saturday with my camera in hand to see how many people from the local towns will be fighting the freezing cold winds and lack of sleep while lining up at the break of dawn. Though I don't expect it the pictures to be nearly as impressive as the upcoming pics from the Tokyo folks, it should still prove interesting ^_^

So that's all for now until the saturday morning update.

Welcome back, Mr. Freeman

2004-11-16T22:07:00.000+09:00

Yeah, don't expect updates for the next week :)

taiyou no chikai umi no soko de hane wo hirogaru

2004-11-11T23:26:00.000+09:00

or in english "I spread my wings at the bottom of the ocean most near to the sun" one of many lines from the new Go!Go!7188 album "Ryuuzetsuran".

The album is pretty interesting as they went with a very non-orthodox style. Many songs lack a chorus, most songs break into long guitar/bass/drum solos, and the lyrics range from 'blah blah nature is dying, the world is losing color' to a song about Kunoichi (female ninja) written in old-form dialogue, to a song about growing up and realizing the world ain't filled with santa claus and feeling lost, yet realizing that there's still a lot of mystery in the world and it's not a bad idea to search for it. I can't say I'm completely satisfied with the album. It's a hard sell and even after 3 weeks of listening to it I can't really get more than a song or two on it. But I'm still looking forward to seeing them in concert in 2 weeks in Aomori. I found the website for the 'concert hall' that they're playing at and it looks like a tiny broken down home. The fire prevention people limit is 300 max, so I'm guessing it will be a really up close and personal show ^__^

One thing that's been keeping me from enjoying the Go!Go!7188 album as much as I could is the new The Pillows album "Good Dreams" that came out a week later:

A really good effort like always from the group featuring great music, poetic lyrics, and some fantastic vocals. After seeing them live in Sendai I'm really glad they are coming up to Hirosaki in february for the tour of this new album :D
----
So due to various personal issues and work issues I haven't had the chance to update this thing in a looong time. So now I'll play catch up :P

That's a pic of Ajigasawa near the train station. I took it when I accidently got on the wrong bus (was damn tired in the morning) and ended up far away from my work. I had to wait an hour or so for the next train back and then wait 2 hours for the next bus going to my work place :\ Problems with living where transportation runs only every 2-4 hours.

School has been same old same old. I had a chance to teach for the 2nd time at a Jr. High School by myself and it was a blast. One class was really tired from doing 5 periods of tests, so instead of having them do work I just figured I'd put on entertaining skits starring me, myself, and I while they practiced listening or slept. Worked pretty well I do think.

Next week is the mid-year seminar at Hachinohe. I've heard the food is good there so I look forward to the 2 day excursion. Though getting to the 10:30 meeting means catching the 6:30am train out of here that morning ^^;;

So here's what I've been doing the past 2 weeks:

I'm pretty confident in saying that Wong Karwai's 2046 is the best movie of the year IMO. The film was absolutely stunning. The story was WKW's most interesting well layered piece yet, the acting was top-notch with Tony Leung having quite a screen presence, and the music was so good I had to nab the soundtrack by the next day. IMO this film is built on everything he's done so far in career and really shows what an accomplished film maker he is. I can't wait for the dvd and I hope the Criterion Collection are able to put it out in the US :)

The title of the film "chi to hone" (Blood and Bones) is a saying that one's blood comes from their mother and one's bones from their father. The film is based on a novel about a korean man who comes to 1923 Japan in his young age looking for opportunity. The film then cuts to the man in his 40-50s and he's a burnt out evil bastard (played by Beat Takeshi) who is so self-centered that he destroys the only family he has. The film is directed by a Korean director who IMDB calls "The most prominent Korean director residing in Japan". Which is kinda surprising because one of the things the film completely avoids dealing with is the life of Korean immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. Just one of the issues I had with the film...in which there were many. The main problem is that the film never goes into how this guy filled with hope in 1923 became the person who is he is in ~1943. Thus we can never really see into the character (especially since Takeshi does his usually poker face acting) so the film basically just becomes an example of the Japanese 'aware' style (sad and pitiful) where we watch everyone live horrible lives and die one after another.

Game-wise I'd been spending the last 2 weeks with the fantastic Stelladeus for PS2. The game, written by one of the most famous Japanese fantasy authors (who wrote the Record of Lodoss novels), the game is filled with philosophical arguments, deep characters, and just really awe-inspiring writting. Even the premise for the story is interesting:

--A long time ago in the past a sea of white fog started approaching the main continent of the world. Everything the fog passed over would disappear. So people of the world became panicked as they feared the end. They started rioting and stealing and killing. Then one day a religion proclaimed that the sea of fog was God's will and that those who accept the "peaceful end" will go to paradise. Thus the chaos stopped and people were able to live normal lives; yet at the same time accepting that the end was approaching they lost all hope and dreams, they lost the will to live and became languid. One day a general gathered an army and began taking over the continent and killing all those who would do nothing with their lives. One day he comes into the main character's village...

The story then becomes a series of arguments about religion's place in the modern world, about how it can do good; yet if mishandeled can be terrible. It was a really entertaining piece and did a good job raising questions about society as a whole. Not too mention the gameplay portion was top-notch and the soundtrack was incredible.

Part2

2004-11-10T01:05:00.000+09:00

This post was actually so big I had to split it into 2 posts :P

(yes that's an official artwork by Nintendo :P)
Picked up the new Zelda game for GBA. It's the first original Zelda title on the system and visually it's on the level of the SNES/SFC Zelda III Link to the Past. The dungeons are very well designed and the music is good stuff. A little on the easy side but Zelda's difficulty has always been in it's puzzles.

Joined the Japanese clique of the few hundred people who actually own an xbox in Japan the other day. Mainly got it for Halo 2, but picked up Dead or Alive online since it's pretty and it's an online fighter :) The Halo 2 LE package came with a year Xbox live subscription so now I'm getting to see how good Japanese players play DoA and it's pretty fun. One thing is the Japanese players, unlike English speaking players, don't talk much or at all; whereas english speakers just shout random curses every 5 secs.

As much as I'm having a pretty good time at the moment with Halo 2 offline and online, the countdown is almost up for what will possibly be the greatest game ever created:

NOVEMBER 16th US Pacific Time it will unlock and many people in the world will be quite joyous.

Pre-ordered the DS (Dec 2nd) and PSP (Dec 12th) at my local WonderGOO. Though despite that they had a sign stating "Even though you pre-order we might not give you one. We probably won't get enough, so line up early on the day of release". Luckily PSP which will be the rare one for sure (especially since Sony is going to eat $300 loses on every unit sold...thus 'shortages' will happen for the first year or so) is being released on a sunday so camping out in the snow could be possible depending on the line and the weather. Now whether either system ends up being good is another question, but I'm more interested in the fact that both are pushing the handheld market forward rather than allowing it to remain 10 years behind current technology.

you get DS for innovative bizarre stuff like this:

and then PSP for amazing visual stuff like this:

Between both systems launching, the highest selling game for the next 5 years in Japan being released (DQVIII), Gran Turismo 4 (700 cars, 50 tracks, 96 songs), and MGS3 coming out this next month is going to be pretty crazy and that's just before Xmas trip excitement. Hmm, looking forward to it all.

Lastly:

Xenosaga the TV animation starts airing on Jan 1st. o_O? Yea I have no clue either, but it could be interesting.

PS. Roberto and anyone else I know who has Xbox live, e-mail me your tags so we can get some games in.

I want!

2004-10-25T21:12:00.000+09:00

Famitsu says it's made of rubber and has a soft, slimey feel
YES!

Earthquakes, Lightning, Fires, Father

2004-10-25T17:12:00.000+09:00

The title of todays post refers to the Japanese
saying that orders the greatest terrors of the world
to the Japanese people. Jishin (earthquake), Kaminari
(lightning), Kaji(fire), Oyaji(father).

...so if you've always wondered why a core theme in
the majority of Japanese cinema is about people vs.
their father, there's your explanation. <_<

Anyways Japan had some earthquakes and they were big.
Up in Aomori though you couldn't feel a thing and I
only found out about it because I was watching TV at
the time and all the channels were interuptted.
Between this and most of the typhoons missing Aomori,
I think we're getting some freebies to make up for the
fact that it's REALLY FREAKING COLD here already >_<
There's already snow up in the mountains and walking
back from the school late at night after parking my
car requires me to be fully outfitted with 3 layers of
clothing + gloves + headwear and yet by the time I
reach my place 12 or so minutes later I'm completely
chilled. At least my actual house is warm like a
toaster.

Last week was normal as usual. I've been working on
building my awesome futon of the future through
paychecks and am close to completion. Though I guess
there's a problem of if your bed is 'too' perfect
you're never gonna want to get up and leave.

An awesome awesome film was released last week on dvd:
Casshern.

Feature length directorial debut by music video
director and husband of Utada Hikaru: Kazuaki Kiriya,
Casshern again strengthens the idea that like Spike
Jonze, David Fincher, and countless others, the most
creative directors are coming from music video
backgrounds. Casshern is a comic book film based on
an old cheezy manga from the 70's. Kazuaki took full
lead of this project as he wrote, directed, edited,
and was the director of photography for the film.
Rather than doing as many comic book movies do and
telling one story of the comic, Kazuaki wrote a story
that basically covers the entire thing in 2:30 hours.
The result of this is a lot of time jumping, a plot
that asks you to accept everything at face value, and
a whole lot of confusion.

Going by the content of the film, it's easily a
b-movie. It has a subtle feel of the goofiness of
sci-fi manga in the 70s though it hides it well as the
film takes itself completely seriously. But what
makes this film noticable is that it's a B movie with
A+ style. Take the visual look of Amelie, Fight Club,
Requim for a Dream, Dark City, etc... and you have a
small idea of the visual settings for this film. The
settings are just incredible in their art and in the
framing and Kazuaki works with large amount of styles
to keep every section of the film looking like their
own music video. The color correction and costumes
are really eye-catching and the acting ain't too bad either.

Overall it's just a really fun ride with gorgeous eye-candy.
Most fun enjoyable Japanese film I've seen since the first time
I saw Versus.

Other noteable points from last week include finishing
up the Berserk: Millenium Falcon arc game which, as a
fan of the manga, was quite pleasing. I wrote up a
substantial review of it here:
http://forums.gaming-age.com/showthread.php?t=19671

I then moved into Paper Mario 2 which I'm finishing up
at the moment. Really fun gameplay and the dungeons
are top class, but the amount of dialogue (I'M SORRY
BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE...should not
take 10 speech bubbles of text to deliver) and the
most backtracking I've ever seen in a rpg make the
non-dungeon bits grating. Should have it finished in
time for Atlus's Stelladeus on thursday.

Macross Zero ended. Personally I've never been a fan
of Macross as planes with legs always struck me as a
dumb idea. I stuck with the Gundam stuff as they tend
to be based on Egyptian designs and ancient Egypt was
a cool looking place. Anyhow the OAV was alright, it
was a simple story with simple characters and by the
book "Love conquors all" theme [the Macross theme I
guess]. Much like director Kawamori's Chikyuu Shoujo
Arjuna, MZ is filled with the same old
environmentalism and the same ugly CG work and the
usual religous imagery. But despite all that, the
overblown really really overdramatic presentation of
every scene coupled with some beautiful music in
(latin? dunno) made it enjoyable to watch all the way
through.

Wong Karwai's latest film: 2046 opened at the local
theater on saturday and I've been kinda putting off
going to see it because the idea of reading Japanese
subtitles for 3 hours seems like more work than play.
But some of the film is in Japanese so it shouldn't be
'that' taxing...and it is Wong Karwai so the
cinematography should be brilliant. I'll probably end
up going tomorrow since Tuesday is cheap movie day for men.

Why the Japanese should stick to trains

2004-10-18T20:11:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I live in a town with a population of probably under 1000 in the general 20 mile radius. The streets are wide and straight and usually well lit and you are lucky to see another car every 4 mins.

YET..half the time I walk to school and back I see a crashed car and the police or ambulance taking care of it.

I find this very odd as driving here seems to be incredibly easy and painless. Now I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations like that Japanese people can't drive or inaka folks aren't that great of drivers. But rather I just wonder why the hell are all these people crashing and why does nobody seem to care that in a little tiny town the accident rate is so high?

Talking with a friend living elsewhere in Japan he recalled his experiences with Japanese drivers:

******: I saw someone in front of me just turn and plow STRAIGHT into a fence pole once
******: it was like WHAT DID YOU JUST DO

I mean I see people run red lights like EVERY 3rd LIGHT here...wtf!? At least I've learned that you drive really defensively here and try to not let other people hit you.

You also have to keep in mind that the speed limits here are SLOW. Normal streets are 40-50khm which is like 30-40mph. So you have to wonder if there's something wrong when a country where people drive 1/2 the speed as the people in the US, they get into just as many crashes...

And despite this I hear they're extremely uptight and prejudice against foreigners when trying to get a license @_@

-------------------------------
So the FMA Best Collection album came out and it has already broken some records.

It has remained the #1 selling album on the main music charts in Japan for 5 days now. The last time an anime soundtrack did that was Evangelion: Death OST which happened SEVEN YEARS AGO. To top it off the album is only 8 tracks and retails for 3500yen (~$35). So how did they do it?

Well first thing you notice is that it comes in a really big heavy box with nice art. Then you look at the contents and see that it contains:
--A music cd with all 8 OP/EDs for the show.
--A dvd with clean credit-less versions of all 8 OP/EDs for the show
--A cd booklet with all the lyrics and band info
--A dvd booklet with stills from all the OP/EDs
--A 100+ thick HQ paper guide to the entire series from ep1-51 filled with storyboards, art, and even english quotes which are surprisingly really well translated for being done by a Japanese company ("I, as one who acts upon the will of god, shall pass the sentence in his behalf").

Next you see that it will be discontinued on Jan 1st, 2005 making it a collectors item. Then you notice that the OP/ED's are by many of the bands with albums in the Top 10, and lastly you have the word of mouth from the show.

All that added up to setting some records, and depending on how long it holds #1 it may set even more.

Lastly to anyone reading this who is in Aomori-ken (or Japan in general) and owns a GBA. Go buy Mawaru Made in Wario!

There's not much point in me writing up a review when this man has done it already: MAWARU MADE IN WARIO REVIEW

The sensor the game comes with is just so so awesome. Screw VR glasses, screw steering wheels, screw the power glove, this is the most immersive game I've ever played. Physically moving my body around in circles (which isn't the 'correct asobikata' but it's the most fun! :P) is a blast and the game is just incredibly addictive and perfect for killing time anywhere. Every once and a while Nintendo hits out a winner and this is it for 2004.

I can't wait to hit in America

2004-10-15T17:56:00.000+09:00

More Jusco skies.

Elementary school in full song practice before their upcoming festival thing.

So this is mainly about the new season of anime that's begun airing.

Beck:

Story of a band coming together. I've heard great things about the manga and the animation, and music in the show is top-notch. Very entertaining and full off english conversations (in a bad accent way) since one of the main characters is from America.

Gundam SEED Destiny:

ZAKU are BACK THANK YOU GOOD SIR

So is the famous voice actor of Char :)

Whoever designed the colors on the new Gundam needs to be fired. Red is not for mecha.

But FREEDOM will return so all is forgiven.

The Count of Monte Cristo:

Gonzo's sci-fi adaptation of Alexander Dumas's classic novel. Kinda good at times, pretentious as hell and crappy most of the time. I'm gonna follow it cause I'm curious and too lazy to read the novel :P

I'm pretty sure Dumas didn't envision the count to be a blue vampire man.

...nor did he expect him to be driving a spaceship I expect.

Bleach:

Thank you Studio Pierott for doing a lame adaptation of one of my favorite mangas using bad artists and cheap animation.

Otogizoushi - Tokyo chapter:
Well it really isn't new persay. But Otogi was a story set in Heian Japan, ~1000AD. It was a pretty good show with a nice artstyle and classical music and dialogue. Then it kinda ended it's story at ep13, but there is an ep14! Well it's now 2004AD and all the characters have been reincarneted and meet up again. The first story did not end very happily, so the idea is will these people follow the same path and make the same choices again or will they people to break out of the circle of fate.

Hikaru 1000AD vs. Hikaru 2004AD

Tsuna 1000AD vs. Tsuna 2004AD
I give them a lot of respect for doing something original, interesting, and completely unexpected. Woohoo Production IG.

So now with the full season underway I'm following:
Fantastic Children - Still so very very awesome
Tsukiyomi Moon Phase - Kinda crappy, but very funny and I like the staff (Soul Taker/ Cossette)
Otogizoushi
Beck
My-HiME - My Highly-advanced Materializing Equipment. Sunrise's guilty pleasure show. Swords, Guns, Mecha, Magic, Romance, Comedy. But hey when you're Sunrise and make gorgeous animation even you're dumb mainstream stuff is enjoyable.
Keroro Gunsou - 2nd season of the Sunrise show about alien frogs bent on world domination except the captain is a Gundam plastic model otaku and won't leave the house. I approve.
Mahou Shoujo Tai Alice - Still running debut show by Studio 4C. Great Tim Burton style art design makes the show very much worth it.
SEED Destiny

Overall slightly more shows than last season, and just when the rush of xmas games is gonna hit ;_; Now is when 36 hour days would be good stuff.

At least I've got the 1000 kanji down pat at this point. So my next 6 weeks of studying for JLPT consists of making sure I don't forget what I've been studying lately ^^;;

Sendai and all that

2004-10-15T17:29:00.000+09:00

Well Sendai was a trip filled with some good and then a whole lot of bad to balance it out. Though for the most part the bad is derived from the weather in Japan which decided to fling a Typhoon at me for the entire time I was in Sendai.

Basically I took a 4 hour highway bus their on Friday night and it rocked. The seats were comfortable, the bus stopped every hour so you could get food, hit the restrooms, and with a good pair of headphones the time went by quite fast...oh yea and it was cheap :)

Unfortunately when the bus arrived it was already raining...something that would continue for the next 3 days straight. Navigating to my hotel wasn't too bad and after dropping off my backpack I checked out the locale.

The main shopping arcade which was long and pretty darn cool.

Shrimp Gyoza in a small gyoza specialty resturaunt! It was really really good. I need to see if I can find a place near me that makes this.

Yea I don't know either ^^;;

Saturday morning was pouring and I headed off to the concert. Seeing as I didn't realize there would be a TYPHOON I dressed lightly as concerts tend to get hot.

Walkin' in the rain.

Inside the concert area waiting for the doors to open.

The concert was actually really awesome as the place was small and I was like 10 feet or less from the stage. Though the sound really and I mean really sucked. They had the speakers up way too loud and just all the settings were off. Even when there was no music, the vocals would be distorted and crap. So after 5 hours straight of being near one of the speakers I pretty much lost all my hearing in my left ear for the next 2 days.

Of the line-up:

Ellegarden - Band was ok. They were easy to listen to because the music was A. Simple and B. In English. The singer was sooo born in America with Japanese parents as he acted American and his english was perfect. Basically they came off sounding like Blink 182.

Miceteeth - A 10 piece ska/swing band kinda like the Tokyo Ska Parada Orchestra. Good stuff and the singer guy seemed like either he was drunk or retarded as he was wobbling around the stage bumping into things and knocking them over left and right. Pretty good music though :)

Tsuji Ayano - This was one woman and her ukalayle (yea I can't spell it). She was pretty darn good and it was really nice.

The Piece - These guy's were assholes. They thought they were the Japanese Ramones, but they're weren't even that good. Just really annoying with mediocre music >_<

KT&T - These guys were awesome. They came out and just jammed hard rock for like 40 mins straight. They sounded kinda like Guitar Wolf but more rockin and less metal.

Straightener - I think these guys are gonna be big soon. They were very easy on the ears like Ellegarden but they had more substance to them. They seemed perfect for a mainstream audience and I see them becoming an Asian Kung-fu Generation in the future.

The Pillows - Totally rocked the show. Pretty much everyone in the audience was there for The Pillows, and there's a reason why. The energy and emotions they put into their songs when playing live is amazing. Just the experience of being in this crowd of complete energy was really moving. One of the best live shows I've been too and I was glad to find out they'll be playing in Hirosaki in Feb.

So after the show the TYPHOON 22 was in full swing and it was pouring hard and the winds were up and the streets were just giant lakes. So I had the fun of making my way 30 mins on foot back to the train station in the dark and watery Sendai Port (while not being able to hear much). So yea I got completely soaked and didn't have a change of clothes so I had to wear damp stuff the next day.

This resulted in me getting sick, spending the rest of my trip in my warm hotel bed resting and then being sick all week. So thanks to TYPHOON 22 my trip was very interesting @_@

Sendai just before leaving.

Birthday

2004-10-06T22:27:00.000+09:00

Had a birthday today.

Thanks to everyone who sent me e-mails are wished me a happy birthday.

Went and ate a lot of food which was ok. Then I tried pumpkin pie and was let down as soon as I unwrapped the foil to discover the pumpkin part was yellowish green. Tasted downright awful and more like Japanese bean snacks than any kind of pumpkin.

Other than that I presented myself with some new DJ Technic headphones. Now I can finally listen to music at home and get good sound ^__^.

All in all it was a pretty normal day. But I guess I'm a year older now so that counts for something. Anyways, this weekend will be more interesting when I go to Sendai and see The Pillows play live along with other pretty decent bands. So...

So the new season of anime has started. It's a lot of blah and bleh (Count of Monte Cristo futuristic Sci-fi remake >_< ). But one stood out as being quite interesting, "Fantastic Children".

Story of reincarnation over hundreds of years. Very nice music, great animation, good drama, all the makings of a good show. The designs are going for the retro throw-back look and it works great. Also the ending song is fantastic. Should be the show to look out for this season.

The world is fukanzen, thus utsukushii

2004-10-03T01:49:00.000+09:00

^________________________________^
An incredibly strong final episode. Wrapped up the series nicely and still set up the feature film. It really was a fantastic work with great directing, a strong script, powerful music, and a great voice cast. Pretty much everything the series built up paid off and the resounding themes of the series were carried to the extreme in the end.

Summer 2005 can't come soon enough :)

Woohoo

2004-10-01T15:31:00.000+09:00

Read an on-going transcript of the 1st debate while at work today. Nice to see Bush getting owned left and right by Kerry :) I heard from those watching it that it was even funnier with all Bush's 'ummm's and dead pauses thrown in.

Kerry: "The president said the enemy attacked us.... Iraq didn't attack us, Osama Bin Laden did.... "

Bush: "Look I know Osama bin Laden attacked
us..."

lol

Kerry: "you can be certain.... and wrong!"

yay

Looking at the CNN polls with Kerry winning the debate at 78%, Bush at 12% and 10% undecided hopefully this will turn some heads. Especially since this was supposed to be the strong debate for Bush. Though who knows how much effect this will even have on election day.

Lumines and some Wanda

2004-09-29T23:18:00.000+09:00

Well the Typhoon 21 will be here soon and the rain is already pouring. But by the end of the weekend it'll be gone and only traces like this will remain:

Last thursday was the trip to Tokyo which mainly went over well. After 7-8 hours of traveling I was walking the streets of Tokyo seeing stuff like this:

That's a new idea a cafe is trying. See they're putting their tables in the middle of the street with signs saying DO NO DRIVE INTO OUR CUSTOMERS or something like that. Unfortunately I didn't really see many tourists or locals flocking to the place.

Thursday night was get together with gaming-age people and others though. It was a good time for all and a heck of a lot of people (everyone in the picture only makes up about 1/4th the room which we entirely took up ^^; )

Friday was shopping in Akihabara for 8 hours :) Picked up a lot of good stuff, though the best thing I got was probably a set of 1st pressing FMA dvds vol.1-9. Vol.2 comes with a huge metal box to hold all the dvds, and vol.3 comes with a metal binder to hold all the notes distrobuted through the dvds. I won't name the price as it's too painful but I guess you could say it cost an arm and a leg (har har har ...gomen)

Also "THE ULTIMATE VERSUS" dvd. See Versus was made in 1999, then after it became this kinda cult classic (by people with good taste), director Ryuhei Kitamura decided it would be a fun project to get everyone in the cast back together, put on all their old make up and costumes, go back to the forest they shot at, and make new scenes to splice into the film. So the movie has a whole bunch of new cuts ranging from a new 4 sec shot of guy blocking a sword, to a new 3 min section added into the final battle. The result is kinda wierd but cool. The quality of the new footage is much better than the original grainy filmed on crappy equipment version so you can tell what shots are new pretty fast. The 2 dvd set also has a great making of the new footage documentary showing how everyone in the cast kept getting injured because none of them are professional stunt people, so during fake fighting they would accidently connect with the other person and injure them. The 2nd dvd is loaded with 18 mins of deleted scenes which rock (including more scenes to the monkey man's subplot during the final battle segment), a bunch of documentaries and a new mini-movie "Nervous 2" which deals with the monkey man dealing with his post-versus-ending trauam. Also everyone keeps talking about Versus 2 so it certainly seems like it will happen...maybe after Godzilla Final Wars?

Saturday was the show itself:

People on their way to the show.

Line into the place which wrapped around the entire convention center.

Some shots of a few booths. It was pretty dark in their and the men in suits were taking away cameras that got shots of anything that was "not to be seen outside this convention" so I didn't take many shots.

Hideo Kojima and military advisor Mori discuss features of the upcoming MGS3 including the bizarre Ape Escape tie-in where you have to rescue monkeys.

The show itself was ok. Nothing really stood out as amazing besides the new MGS3 trailer and maybe the 5 min spoilerfic trailer of the upcoming FFVII Advent Children film. Most interesting thing was probably playing Sony's upcoming portable 'jack-of-all-trades' handheld system, the PSP. Most of the software ranged from crap to average, but the new game by Rez creator Mizuguchi entitled Lumines left a strong impression on me.

The game itself is just another variation on a tetris puzzle game. But like Rez the music of the game is effected by everything you do in the game. So the game provides rhythms and you make the beats with setting up block combos. Even level adds another layer to the rhythm. This wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for the incredible sound system of the PSP. The sound quality was like watching a DTS track in a film with a high-quality reciver...in other words it sounded awesome. Considering that the current handheld on the market is restricted to below 16bit level of sound, this is a huge and very cool jump in that realm. The PSP screen was also quite nice, I really doubt this thing will launch for under $300 here, though if it does I'll be there on day one.

Wanda and the Collosi gets special mention just because it's the new game by the people that brought us ICO, the game closest to achieving the status of art in our society. There wasn't much to show of it yet other than that you play as a girl who must take down gigantic creatures by climbing them. The scale of the Collosi is perfectly crafted and their animation is very surreal. Indeed one to look forward to in 2005.

Sunday was trip back and catching up on saturday's missed FMA ep50:

Wow, was left pretty speechless.....1 ep left airing Saturday at 5:30am on Aomori TV. I give Bones credit for keeping the:
(curtousy of duckroll for the image)
...factor at an ultimate high for these past 2 eps, and I have no clue how they plan on closing this all, other than I doubt it will be a happy end.

Ending while still in the FMA mood, I'm currently finishing up the 2nd FMA action/rpg for PS2. Unlike the first game which was total crap and should never have been released, this is actually a decent (read 7/10) game with gorgeous anime sequences by Bones and a decent story to hold the somewhat limited fighting engine together.