Actually it’s been some time since I did any of these anyway. The Japanese manga is up to like chapter 11 by now, so I needed to do some catchup anyway. As usual the quality isn’t the greatest, but I’m a one man team!

Look for translations of previous chapters in the category archives.

Hit the jump for the three new chapters. Like all Japanese manga, this should be read right to left, top to bottom.

Episode 7: Sharp-chan’s Great Leap Forward! The Ups and Downs

Notes: Apparently they have something called “Wallet Mobile”, or Osaifu Keitai in Japan where you use your phone as a wallet. It does make a lot of sense and Japan’s mobile phone industry does have a nack of getting stuff done that doesn’t get done elsewhere (like using email in lieu of texting). Evidently not everyone’s compatible though. Apple doesn’t give two shits.

Also, in case anyone cares, I’m not entirely sure what ごーせー means in what Enuko says (今日のランチはごーせーにキメないとね!). I did some googling and in the end decided it’s 豪勢 (luxury/magnificence), which I’m not too sure how to translate in this context too. So yeah, I kinda winged it.

Episode 8: Sharp-chan’s Great Leap Forward! The Coach with no Self-restraint

Notes: Not too sure if I could make too much sense out of this one, lol, but skimming what is written in the source article it seems to be referring to the AQUOS Phone 104sh, whose UI is apparently “like a swimsuit that hides little and yet remains stylish… maybe”. I’ve never played with one, but it looks pretty enough I guess.

Episode 9: (Continued) Soni Eri-chan’s Family Matters

Notes: It’ll be weird to not hear “Sony-Ericsson” again. Oh, and the kanji used for “Sony” in the first koma is お父様 (meaning father), and for “A B Soni-”, it’s 阿部そに江. I don’t know if that’s supposed to mean anything.

Sources for these episodes are here, here and here.

These translations are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

It turns out that I managed to make a pilgrimage to the holy soils of Akihabara, with the following spoils to show for it:

Still pretty meagre, compared to some of the other posts I’ve seen, but hey at least it filled up a photo! Moreover, it turns out that I spent a fair fortune on this stuff, 90% of which went to this little frikkin thing:

That’s the complete blu-ray set for Clannad After Story, second-hand even. Blu-ray anime cost like 2 bombs a limb and seven children. But yeah, I like Clannad after that much, and have always wanted to watch it in some semblance of quality above the embarassing TV-rips I had. So now I’ve got them in glorious 1080p. I hope you’re happy, says my wallet – a full 37k yen lighter.

I even bought a second-hand blu-ray drive because I couldn’t find the thing in DVD.

(Trivia: you basically cannot buy or find non-bootleg anime in my country, and it always costs an unreasonable amount to ship to SEA from any civilised part of the world. Thank God for fansubs)

Anyway as for the rest, they’re mostly cheap stuff, me being pretty broke after forking out for the blu-ray. There are 2 CD’s of doujin music (I didn’t even know they existed!), one being violin arrangements of Kanon songs and the other being a industrial/electronic-ish remix of Fate/Stay Night numbers. Pretty nice stuff.

The four booklets are 100-yen doujins. There’s a cute (non-erotic) yuri pairing short-story K-ON doujin, a weird Hatsune Miku one that involves getting married over a leek, an idolm@ster one that I got cause it was so thick (oh greed, but it was nice), and a semi-OOC doujin featuring Haruhi being really dere and some cute KyonxHaruhi (OTP!). I kinda regret not buying more really, as I went through them pretty quickly and they were quite enjoyable.

Finally there’s the two figures. My first, ever. They were pretty cheap, so I figured why not. The only ones I ever see on sale where I live are high-quality, cost-a-bomb kinds.

Of course, no one’s surprised I got Rei and Asuka. <3 <3 Rei and Asuka. I got a long-hair Haruhi for my brother too.

And that's that! Akiba is a pretty big place. We ended up spending two afternoons and evenings there and my friend says we only got to some of the key places, lol. We also managed to catch the last of the sakura blooms in Kyoto, so it was all in all a good trip, though our legs nearly died.

Might try to save for another visit late in the year to maybe catch Eva 3.0 in theatres (ho ho ho). Figured that while I’m working sans a family I might as well try to do some travelling.

Till next time! Next time hopefully being sooner rather than later…

UPDATE2: Well, I guess a final update is in order re: “what really happened!?”. So the event did in fact happen (at their new venue), but as one might guess from the everything else written in this post and the last, it was as far as I could tell, a predictably, tragically dismal failure. Better luck next time Viva Version, if there is a next time. Ooh and here’s some extra word on a final fiasco that happened with AFKL. And here’s something I found which gave an idea of what it was like to attend AFKL (with photos!). It looks like the Darrel J. Guilbeau guest of honor guy ended up being a cool guy and saved the event somewhat. If only a little.

UPDATE: AFKL apparently changes their friggin venue like a couple days before the event. AreYouF**kingKiddingMe.jpg.

You’d think amending a previous declaration would be an uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassing thing to do, but damn, I tell you I’m actually relieved and a little happy. The truth is I’ve been actively lurking and keeping up on word on Anime Fiesta KL since writing that post. After all, a coalition of people remained that seemed to swear by the validity of the event, and I wanted to see if they could offer anything onto the table that could challenge the sizable condemnatory evidence (about AFKL being a scam).

So I lurked, and waited, and while most people spoke no sense in their fanatical loyalty, gradual lurk-analyses eventually revealed an actual possibility, consistent with all previous evidences, for Anime Fiesta KL to not be a scam. Nonetheless, I wanted to wait for an actual positive evidence before opening my mouth again, and today I found that evidence in the form of this post.

In short, the sum of all evidences I previously detailed can in fact either show that AFKL is a scam, as previously claimed, or simply that the organisers were inexperienced and generally exhibited bad form. For starters, there is no Hatsune Miku concert! This much is absolutely certain. There is some word claiming the organisers wanted to have the concert but it didn’t happen, and also some saying that it’ll happen later in the year instead. So that puts the Hatsune part to rest: there is no concert. No trace of that is in the events official web page, and the organisers are apparently themselves confirming this. Hyping a Hatsune Miku concert without confirmation is certainly bad form, but it’s at least not scamming.

A posted Malay-language interview of an organiser-representative also claimed that the organisers originally sought to work with JPAC, but failed, and so they’re winging it on their own. Basically this means, if true, that they probably have zero experience doing this. With this in mind, the atrociously bad, entirely plagiarized official website and the fact that it is hosted on a private streamyx connection shared with a mobile phone store becomes somewhat less suspicious – since it appears that the mobile phone store is in fact the organiser. It’s a little weird, but not quite impossible. The organisers and supporters are after all claiming that they are organising this out of interest and passion. Alright. Still again, claiming JPAC before confirming JPAC is, well, bad form.

The lack of the event on the list of scheduled events at the intended event location, KLCC, can be explained if the organisers actually announced the location before successfully reserving the site. I asked the organisers about this myself and they claimed to have been given a lot of trouble by the site admin, and had to make many floor-plan revisions. “Now we are rushing for the authorities’ approval”. Again, announcing before reserving and then scrambling to get the site is bad form, but it does let us explain the lack of the event on the scheduled event without labelling AFKL a scam.

Notably, the event is still not listed as of the writing of this post, and the organisers claimed to have requested it not be put up because, and I quote, “For reason that KLCC is wearing out all the enquiries.”. I didn’t understand that either. For now the best we have is the word of the guy at Typical Storm who claimed that a trusted person has contacted KLCC and confirmed the existence of the event.

There is still no official response from AFKL itself regarding all the allegations levelled at them, but if the above suppositions are true, well, it’s not at all far-fetched that the organisers are simply incapable of constructing a proper response. In fact it seems at this point to me that the organisers don’t actually have a spokesperson that is fluent in English, with most of the support and interviews appearing to come from the Malay-speakers.

In short, rather than a ginormous malicious scam, there is now a significant possibility that the organisers simply bit off far more than they could chew (and counted a hootload of their chickens before they hatched). The entire scam hoo-ha originated from the terrific ball of hot air the organisers created for themselves at the beginning of all this, throwing out names like JPAC and a Hatsune Miku concert and all manner of other superlatives, which people proceeded to investigate, dismantle, and call them out on. Now viewed in a more humbled light: as an ambitious convention planned by passionate first-time organisers, the whole thing becomes a lot more plausible.

And really, this is something that I could live with. Even a badly organised event with well-meaning but somewhat irresponsible organisers is a good effort that would hopefully become a learning experience for future efforts. It is definitely infinitely better than a scam. You probably won’t see me down at KLCC on the 31st of March, as RM50 is still well beyond what I’m willing to pay even for a premium con (sans concert), but I’ll be extremely gladdened nonetheless if there is a hall open down there, with people manning booths and cosplayers parading the aisles.

EDIT: This may not be a scam after all. See new post here!

Here’s a public service announcement of sorts. I don’t know how many of you who come by here are actually Malaysians or close thereofs, but if you are, consider what I’m about to say carefully. I came by a poster (above) today at a “Rock Corner” music store outlet advertising an anime con called Anime Fiesta Kuala Lumpur (web site here, as shown above), apparently to be held 31st March to 1st April at KLCC and even involving a Hatsune Miku live. The catch however is that this thing is, believe it or not, almost certainly a scam. After smelling something fishy while looking this up online, I did some reading around, and have a summary of evidences listed below:

1. By multiple accounts (by people who claimed to have called up or visited the event venue, eg here) and by the schedule page of the location itself, nothing remotely related to anime is happening there at the announced con date. The halls that are supposed to house the event are also, apparently, already booked, by other parties. Various groups have also claimed that they were approached by the organisers selling their booths while acting extremely unprofessionally and making incredulous claims about the scale of the event.
2. Someone apparently emailed Crypton Future Media Inc. inquiring about a Hatsune Miku concert in Malaysia and screenshot and posted the email conversation. The response was a negative. There are also many people voicing suspicions regarding the pricing of the Hatsune Miku concert tickets, who are apparently significantly more exorbitant than comparable concerts in the past.
3. Some thorough, transparent (and Linux-assisted!) sleuthing, summarised in this post, revealed that not only is the event’s web page (and its many iterations!) suspiciously badly conceived and full of blatant plagiarisms, they are also self hosted under dyndns via a streamyx connection, and is in fact squatting together with the website of the claimed organizing company, which, as it turns out, is a mobile phone store in Ampang. Beyond suspicious for the webbie of an apparently highly ambitious project involving a Hatsune Miku live.
4. There is no official response from the organizers regarding the avalanche of accusations levelled at them. Not even an appeal for time or a promise that everything will be cleared up. Take a look at (one of!) the event’s facebook page. Basically, they are simply ignoring the accusations (and, from bits and pieces here and there, apparently also deleting and banning them), only responding indifferently to price and time enquiries.

In short, taken collectively, I consider the evidence virtually incontrovertible. This is almost certainly a scam, do NOT fork out any money to these people! Unfortunately I was able to find little advice for people who might already have purchased something from these folks. This post recommends reporting the scam to the National Consumer Complaints Center/Pusat Khidmat Aduan Pengguna Nasional. There is also an “Official video response” of sorts apparently by the local community regarding the situation, in which victims are invited to “contact us immediately in the comment section below & it’ll further assist in the police investigation”.

I hope there aren’t many victims :( I was surprised at the terrible taste this left in my mouth, considering I had only had a passing interest in the possibility of going to the “event”. I can only imagine how it would feel to be brutally cheated of your money and your anticipation and excitement. Various parties claim to be taking action against these guys, I wish them the greatest success. If someone knows what else can be done about these conmen, please drop me a note at the comments.

Edit: links fixed. /palmface

Episode 1 is here and episode 2 through 4 are here.

Hit the jump for translations for 05/06 and an omake. Like all Japanese manga, this should be read right to left, top to bottom.

Episode 5: Gut(circuit board)-deep Transparency is the Cutting Edge!

Notes: This referring to the transparent-midriffed Sony Ericsson Xperia S. Incidentally, Hiromi also has a translation of this chapter at Nabe!!.

Episode 6: Go go reborn au-club!

Notes: If Moto Rora-chan’s bra looked familiar, you probably recognized it.

Omake

Apparently in the wake of an announcement about “Disney Mobile on Docomo”, two new characters were introduced, with a dialogue of sorts to go with them too. Translations follow:

Ah that’s nice, that’s cute!
Move your head over a little.. ah, that expression is great.
Alright, pose!

Alright thanks for your time!

Matsushita Pana: “Hey Tooru-chan, your boobs are actually pretty big, aren’t they!”
Fuji Tooru: “That’s not true (embarassed) And Pana-chan is so slim and girlish. You’re even great at washing and doing housework and such…”
Pana: “You’re calling me a w-washboard!? that’s mean Tooru-chan”
Tooru: “Aaaaa I didn’t say that!”

Notes: Pana-chan refers to Panasonic, and Matsushita is apparently Panasonic’s old name. Fuji Tooru is Fujitsu, with the “tsu”(通) pronounced “Tooru”. Also, in her first spoken line, Pana calls Tooru a パイオツ カイデー, “PaiOh Kaide”, which (as I just only found out) is actually “Oppai Dekai”, or “big boobs”, flipped around. Apparently there is a fad with flipping words around like that. Unfortunately (or fortunately), I’m not game enough to think up some clever english pun to use as a translation for this, so have this TL-note instead.

Sources for these episodes are here, here and here.

These translations are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

At last! And I can even blame my lateness on BRS, who only just aired.

What are brainmarks? FAQ follows for those who need it:

Not everyone seems to agree, but as far as I can tell Winter is a fairly lacklustre season, coming in the wake of a comparatively awesome Fall. Still, that doesn’t quite mean that there is nothing worth watching, and as usual we’re here to do a little ranked enumeration of the noteworthy stuff.

7 brainmarks this season! Hit the jump and we’re off!

Brainmark #7: Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai!

Barely making it into the brainmarks list is a show that I was sure I was going to drop after a maximum of two episodes. The title, the premise, and the way the entire show packages itself in general is just repulsive – and in fact shortchanges the show by making it appear like a ridiculous excuse to unleash ungracious amounts of lolis in baths. Surprisingly enough, this doesn’t quite seem to be the case. The concluding moments of episode two surprised me with a resolute break-away from the carefree and comedic mood that until then seemed poised to envelop the show. While the light mood swiftly returned, the show does show some evidence of knowing what it’s doing, and exhibits some fairly promising efforts to leverage the shadows of the tragic event to explore familial themes. It is of course hardly above laundering some fanservice, but it does so as an on-the-side, as fanservice should always be. Beyond that, it commendably spends its simple writing in an apparently genuine attempt to flesh out the challenges of the sisters coping with loss and with having to live in a tiny apartment with a college boy, working out some decent sisterly interaction dynamics along the way. That the sisters don’t appear to be blood related and are in different age groups makes an interesting bonus touch. Basically, what I expected to be a terribad loliservice comedy turned out to be something more along the lines of a poorer man’s Usagi Drop.

Of course, all things said above aside, don’t go into this expecting Usagi Drop tier stuff. It seems a decent enough show, but at this point I think it still straddles equal chances of decending into shit and ascending into something memorable. But brainmarks are about potential interestingness, and so I think this deserved a spot. I should probably also mention that Hina is really cute and deadpan hot senpai is pretty funny, and that I probably owed deciding to watch episode 2 to both of them. I’m glad I did though. Yo yo yo.

Brainmark #6: InuxBoku SS

I don’t really know why, but I feel compelled to laugh hysterically whenever Nakamura Yuichi does his fabulous kira-kira pretty boy puppy-eyed routine on screen. It is a fun show in terms of voice acting, with Hanazawa Kana doing her deadpan loli, Hidaka Rina doing a pretty convincing Tamura Yukari impression (yeah I mistook the former for the latter), and Hikasa Youko going to town with a pervert routine that would’ve made Sawa-chan sensei inordinately proud. But of course, that isn’t all this show is about. The show has demonstrated in its first three episodes a precarious deftness in spotlighting and developing their main characters and fleshing out a non-novel but serviceable story without missing a beat of its comedic entertainment value. However, while I have little doubts with regards to the humor part of the show, the drama part feels a little like it’s standing on edge at the moment. It employs a dangerous cocktail of strawman villains and manifactured scenarios that thus far fell just short of looking too contrived and forced – saved, in fact, mostly by very timely comedic interventions as well as some relatively good directing and pacing.

I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen so far. Questionable methods aside, the portrayal of Ririchiyou’s character was pretty well handled, in between the flashy demonic powers, the chibi humor scenes, and the Nakamura Yuichi fabulousness, the show manages to create a compelling image of the kind of life Ririchiyou has had, the things she still struggles with, the things she desires, and the significance of Miketsukami’s entry into her life like a wedge. It’s a little hard to guess where the show plans to go from here though. Dog boy and how he came to be so obsessed with his mistress would probably come eventually. The side characters are fun and the main characters remain interesting for now, but like PapaKiki, this can go in either direction from here. In my opinion, this show would live or die on its ability to keep its key characters alive and identifiable.

Brainmark #5: The Daily Lives of High School Boys

Actually, let’s just call it DanshiNichijou – the english title is just too gay. Probably one of the biggest surprises of the season, DanshiNichijou went the distance, shattered the Kimi to Boku stereotype and convincingly chalked up on the idea that you could do slice-of-life comedies using a bunch of dumb guys instead of cute girls – all the while trampling all over my certainty that I was gonna drop this after the first ep. I wouldn’t have believed I would enjoy a Sunrise show about a bunch of guys in a slice-of-life plotless comedy myself, but this thing is pretty hilarious. The production values are shit, but… this thing is pretty hilarious. There is zero fanservice, zero serious theme explorations, zero plot, zero plot devices other than a typical high school setting, but this thing… is pretty damn hilarious. I hear the Gintama director directs this, and it certainly does emit similar vibes, especially with Tomokazu Sugita just rockin out as witty-glasses-guy-whose-name-I-cannot-remember. Really, who needs names in a brainless comedy anyway. Also..

:3 Did I mention that I’m loving Hikasa Youko’s roles this season? Fortunately DanshiNichijou isn’t as devoid of girls as K-ON was devoid of guys. There’s even a little “Joushi Koukosei wa Hijou” parody corner featuring girls doing dumb stuff. And that thing is, well, pretty hilarious. You get the drift.

Brainmark #4: Ano Natsu de Matteru

Haruka Tomatsu playing the lead already more or less guaranteed my viewership, but NatsuMachi is surprisingly strong, especially for a JC Staff show. Winter has been a very mid-tier season, with most shows deciding not to wrestle more intricate and ambitious plots and ideas and preferring instead to work their way through more regular and failsafe premises. So it comes down to a battle of execution among the throng of mid-tier shows, and at the present vanguard is NatsuMachi. It’s been exceedingly enjoyable thus far. The production values are wonderful, the art and stylistics are beautiful and effective, the animation is fluid and convincing. JC has really got the packaging down with this one. And while the story hardly breaks any new ground, there is a lot of attention to detail that makes everything feel interesting and engaging. The look and feel and the personalities of the characters are well designed and mesh well together, the alien technology (and cute mascot!) aspects of the show aren’t taken too seriously but are deftly balanced in a plot-supporting role, and the outrageous, hilarious delusions that are running amok all over the show are just a really fun way to inject spice into an otherwise relatively boring standard male lead. I also like how the show takes pauses from the current ongoing story to linger on the side characters and their feelings – seemingly hinting and promising that each character would eventually get swirled into the main story in a significant way. I’m actually getting some Toradora vibes from this, and I won’t be surprised if the show gear-shifts away from light-hearted comedy somewhere in the middle to adopt a more drama-heavy mood. This is clearly JC’s A-team working, and I think that A-team can handle it, so I’m not too worried.

Some asides: I gotta say that while Tomatsu’s uncharacteristic voice work as Ichika is pretty intriguing, you gotta love Yukari Tamura’s Lemon. Really liked the ED too. Also, haremette quality is pretty.. lofty in this show. Good stuff. Ufufufu~

Brainmark #3: Another

This looked like one of the most interesting shows from the season previews, and sure enough. PA Works handles the horror-tinged storytelling pretty well, and their amazing track-record with intricate background art really shines through here. Visually, Another is stunning, and the sound direction also holds its own to create an exceedingly atmospheric and immersive stage for the plot to be presented. Despite all the external trappings of the show, I don’t quite consider Another to be a horror show, at least from the first three episodes. While PA goes out on a limb to keep an uneasy and creepy key keening through the whole experience, the primary objective of the show does not appear to be to scare you and spook you out, but to actually tell a story, and that goes a long way towards making Another appealing to a vehement hater of the horror genre like myself. Still, I feel like the primary chink in Another’s armor is its characters, who generally look good, but so far seem pretty shallow and uninteresting (to say nothing of being a bunch of long-faced grandfathers). Misaki herself though could be an exception. In particular, the image of the girl in the red dress facing the sunshine at the final moment of the ED intrigues me. That’s always a good thing.

And what a nice ED it is, I might add.

Brainmark #2: Black Rock Shooter

Brainmark number two seems to be something of a cursed position on this list, with the two previous number twos turning out to be less than what I’d hoped. And lo and behold, I have here the wildcard of the season. Frankly, I think it’s a testimony to the relative low quality of this season that BRS is here at number two. It also means of course that, after stuttering through a relatively lacklustre OVA, BRS manages to open it’s TV debut with something of a bang. Episode one was interesting and captivating, there is little doubt of that. Coming from someone who knows little about the history of Black Rock Shooter, and who skipped by the OVA, episode one is an arms-exhibit of potential, but with little to guarantee them. The surreal artistic elements are very cool, and the more-than-meets-the-eye storytelling works decently for now. This stylistic “otherworld” that seems to act like a reflection of the “real world” is also pretty neat, and opens the stage for a lot of smart and stylistic storytelling and character portrayal. Potential is definitely there in spades, Ordet just needs to put their backs into this and live up to it.

Also, I haven’t heard the Black Rock Shooter song in awhile. It’s pretty nice. It feels like Supercell made somewhat more interesting music before going mainstream, though they’re still pretty good now.

Brainmark #1: Nisemonogatari

Was there ever any doubt? Towering Chuck Norris style head and shoulders above everything else is Nisemonogatari. Nothing probably needs to be said to justify the number one spot, but if you insist on having something to go by, take a look at my overenthusiastic fanboy-ish post on episode one. Long story short, this show is amazing. Go forth and watch the heck out of it.

Honorable Mention: Kill Me Baby

Terrible production values, even-worse OP, generally uninspired setting… pretty darn funny jokes. Surprisingly fun stuff.

Honorable Mention: Rinne no Lagrange

Another decently executed mid-tier show with some nice stylistics and passable themes. Some people appear to be singing its praises, but I don’t see any spark too special in it.

Honorable Mention: Poyopoyo Kansatsu Nikki

There’s… just something hypnotically captivating about round nekos @.@

(Dis)Honorable Mention: Aquarion EVOL

Shockingly great production values, shockingly bad writing, shockingly ridiculous setting. I suppose this clears it off the mid-tier category, but whether for the better or the worse probably depends on you. Me, I think I’ve used up all my tolerance for stuff like this trying not to drop Guilty Crown, so it’s thanks but no thanks. There are those who say it is “so bad it’s good”, though, so if that floats your boat…

So the Windows default disk management tool that is the standard (and, presumably, safest) way to shrink a Windows NTFS volume is basically shit, unless you’re satisfied with only freeing a very modest amount of your volume’s free space. I always knew that. What continues to surprise me is how difficult it can seem to work around this inadequacy (a glaring one, I might add, that has been around since Vista). People have created utilities to find the “immovable” system files that are blocking the shrinking and proceeded to remove them one by one by guesswork. Free Software partitioning swiss-army-knife extraordinaire GParted can also be used to shrink the partition, but this borks the installed Windows system in the process, requiring a Windows CD to fix in a separate, tedious procedure.

As it turns out though, there is a program, freeware for personal use (not, unfortunately, free software), that.. just does the job for you. The program is MiniTool Partition Wizard, and it’s inexplicably pretty hidden on Google when I was searching, not even being mentioned in this otherwise informative and comprehensive article on the subject.

This thing works, I tried – I managed to shrink my volume by 200GB or so more than the default Windows tool would let me. There is another surprise though: you’d think you’ll need the “bootable CD” version to get this done since you can’t have windows mounted and running while the process takes place. Don’t waste your time – I spent a good chunk of time trying to hack the thing onto a flash drive (not having nor willing to sacrifice a blank CD), only to find out that the bootable image runs off some super-ancient version of Fedora Core (Surprise surprise, Linux!) that just wouldn’t boot on my modern hardware.

Just get the Home Edition: it will actually prompt you to reboot your box, and will proceed to complete the shrinking before letting Windows start. I wished this was clearer on the website.

Oh, of course, the standard precaution applies: back up anything important before doing this. Apparently complaints do exist that the tool wrecked their drive. Still, a solution that works most of the time is better than no solution.

main decoder error: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `mpga’.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.
and/or
main decoder error: no suitable decoder module for fourcc `mpgv’.
VLC probably does not support this sound or video format.

I have absolutely no idea why this happens, but apparently the VLC that comes with some common repos for OpenSUSE (I think I got this having installed from Packman!) is somewhat borked. Want a working VLC? Grab it from the Videolan repo. I installed that in desperation and all was suddenly right with the world.

(I half didn’t want to make this post since I can’t actually explain what the problem is and am too lazy to find out, but this solution needs some Google love, so here)

Happy Lunar New Year to my fellow Chinks! (and to everyone else too, actually)

May your Great Anime be abundant and your Linuxboxes spin with roaring power and magnificence in the Year of the Dragon!

/Cheesy season greetings :)

In the end from among my favorites of the season (Which included tracks like Memoria of Fate/Zero, Starboard of Last Exile) I chose Oath Sign, the ringing, beating OP for Fate/Zero. Fate/Zero was to me the best show of Fall 2011, head and shoulders and waist, and Oath Sign just had that certain “just right” quality to get you into the correct mood for the show every time, almost on the level of what Bouken Desho Desho did for the original Haruhi. The spectacular animation sequence that accompanied it and LiSA’s rough-and-raw rock-out style only added to the awesome. Loved it, love it. I only hope that the new OP that would in all likelihood surface for the next half would be as awesome. It’ll be a long wait :( Especially since, Nisemonogatari awesome notwithstanding, Winter is thus far looking like a really dry season compared to what we got in Fall.

(Random insert: why does Last Exile 2 appear to be so off-the-radar, at least among the aniblogs that I follow? That stuff ended up something I would consider top-three material even in the stacked season that it fell in, and yet no one seems to be murmuring a word about it. Weird.)

So anyway, here’s Oath Sign by LiSA. As usual, you can hit F8 to listen to it while it’s up, and hit the jump for a picture, Romaji lyrics, and translations. Enjoy.


Lyrics

Kurikaesu sekai nando te wo nobashitara
Hakanai namida wa kuroi kokoro tokasu no?

Mebaedashita omoi ga mune ni hibiita nara
Kimi no tonari de zutto kawarazu mamoru darou

Ochita kibou wo hirotte asu ni tsunaide yukeba
Karamatta ibitsu na negai datte hodokeru

Hikari wo kazashite tamerai wo keshita
Agetakatta no wa mirai de
Naiteru yoru daita mama nageki wo sakende

Fumiireta ashi wo tooku no risou ga
Sotto iyashite yuku
Tashika na kizuna wo tsuyoku nigiri susumou doko made mo
Kegarekitta kiseki wo se ni

Tsukurareta omoi furereba nani yori mo
Atatakakute genjitsu ga kasumi hajimeru

Kurui dashita sekai ni toika ketsuzukete mo
Kotae nante denaitte mou kimi wa shitte ita no?

Naite nijinda negai wa Kesshite yurugi wa shinakute
Tada sotto itami wo owarinaku ataeru

Kanashimi wo shitte Yorokobi mo shitta
Yowasa wa kimi wo kaete
Tachidomatta toki Hagare subete wo kowashita

Todoku hazu no nai kotoba wo takushite
Mieta hitomi wa
Nani wo kanjite toozakeru no?
Kokoro kakusu youni

Ima koko ni iru imi
Oshiete kureta nara
Tsuyoku irareru kawarazu itsumo

Hikari wo kazashite tamerai wo keshita
Agetakatta no wa mirai de
Naiteru yoru daita mama nageki wo sakende

Fumiireta ashi wo tooku no risou ga
Sotto iyashite yuku
Tashika na kizuna wo tsuyoku nigiri susumou doko made mo

Mayoi nante me wo hiraite
Furiharatte te wo nobasou
Kegarekitta kiseki wo se ni

Translation

If I never stop reaching out to a repeating world
Will my fleeting tears melt a black heart?

If these budding feelings echoed in my chest
Then I’ll surely stand with you and protect you as always

If I can pick up a fallen hope and connect it with tomorrow
Even a wish entangled and twisted can come unraveled

I held up the light and banished hesitation
What I wanted to give to you was: In the future
On nights when you weep, while I hold you, cry out your grief

The distant ideals will take my advancing feet
and gently heal them
Holding on to those definite bonds, I’ll go on
No matter where to
Bearing tainted miracles on my back

When I touch these feelings that we created,
my reality, warmer than ever, will begin to fog

Even if we continue questioning a world in chaos
No answer will come – you knew this didn’t you

A wish, though blurred by tears, will never waver
It simply continues to pain me softly, endlessly

You learn of sorrow, having known joy
Weakness changes you
Free yourself from the frozen moment, bring everything down!

Trusting in words that should never have come across
These eyes that I see -
What do they feel that they distance themselves
As if hiding their heart

If you’ve taught me
The reason I am here,
I can stay strong, without change, forever.

I held up the light and banished hesitation
What I wanted to give to you was: In the future
On nights when you weep, while I hold you, cry out your grief

The distant ideals will take my advancing feet
and gently heal them
Holding on to those definite bonds, I’ll go on
No matter where to

Hesitation? I’ll open my eyes,
Shrug it off, and reach out
Bearing tainted miracles on my back

Romaji Lyrics taken from Gendou’s Anime Music.
Translation by me, adapted from translations from AnimeLyrics.com and Gendou’s Anime Music.

(PS. This song was pretty darn hard to translate, so I’m not sure how accurate this end result is. I’m pretty sure that the other two translations aren’t any better though, and I really didn’t like them, so as usual I wrote my own)