Sickest solo in the series so far? lml
Category: Anime/Manga (Page 8 of 11)
Pic mostly unrelated, unfortunately.
And that post title just flowed its merry way out of my typing fingers like it owned the place, causing me to gag in an uncontrolled, appalled fashion at its terrible cheesiness.
Anyway, as you might hopefully have guessed from the cheesy title, I have decided randomly to make a recording of myself playing stuff on my tragically neglected piano, a feat long adrift within the realms of impossibility due to a critical lack of passable video cameras. With my recent acquisition of a shiny new Nokia N900 though, that shortcoming has at long last found itself addressed. Somewhat. Anyway so without further ado, here are two Anisongs on piano, wrought by yours truly, that you can torture your ears with during your idle times :D
Tori no Uta (OP to Air TV)
Only my Railgun (OP to To Aru Kagaku no Railgun)
On the off chance that anyone might be disappointed that this isn’t in fact my long overdue Angel Beats post – it’s coming, I hope. Rapidly catching up on my backlogs for that show now, and it definitely deserves something. Just hope I get to do it sooner rather than later.
So the 5th chapter of Ubunchu, the free manga about the popular free Linux system Ubuntu, is out. Actually it’s been out for a good long while now but you will note that I only fought my way out of quasi-hiatus in the last post.
So I’ll admit it. This manga is starting to feel somewhat direction-less. It’s fine as a documentary sort of thing I suppose, but why not do better eh? Personally I think it’d be great if we could give the Ubuntu/free-software lecture of the weekchapter thing a rest and spend some pages on developing the characters and illustrating the larger setting instead. It’s still fun as a curiousity (and as blogging material), but I hope we’re moving into some actual plot soon because I think Ubunchu is really getting a little hit-and-miss as pure educational material. /rant
It’s funny how when I’m being steamrolled over by work I have plenty of post ideas that I could not get out due to said steamroller but when I’m suddenly released I just find myself blanked out, not knowing where and how to start. Anyways, here’s me finally making a heroic attempt at breaking out of my quasi-hiatus. Hopefully the posts would come rolling out as per normal after this :P
I know I haven’t posted enough on the current season (and I would have, *grumble grumble*). But something else far more solemn in nature happened while my site was offline.
This song probably needs little introduction. Diamond Crevasse is one of the defining songs of Macross Frontier, performed by the venerable May’n in the guise of Sheryl Nome. The version I have here is part of the one popularly known as “Shinkuu” Diamond Crevasse – a particularly emotive version of the song performed by Sheryl Nome during the critical events of episode 20.
This one is dedicated to Tan Shyn Lyn, who took her life in the early twilight of the 20th of April, 2010.
Hit the jump for lyrics and translations, and hit F8 to play the song while it’s up.
Yes, I’m watching Gurren Lagann on the side, and I just finished episode 16. Damn, this is hands down the absolute best flashback episode I’ve ever seen – as well as the best Gurren Lagann episode for me so far.
Heck yeah! In an age where tonnes of love-coms just flip up and morph into slut-shows in a matter of episodes, who would have guessed that we’d find something this season that is the exact reverse! This show certainly wasn’t on my radar – I figured that if a show about maids and butlers can turn out to be the drunk-party of uncensored nonsense that it is, I certainly didn’t want to imagine what a show outright about sex would end up being. But now that I have been cajoled into giving it a shot, I’m surprised. We may actually have a sweet and juicy love-com on our hands here underneath that thin layer of brittle slut-show wrapper.
A few things about the show so far that’s cool:
- The main protagonist is a girl. This has two important benefits. Firstly its actually somewhat fresh to watch an echhi show from a girl perspective. It’s also a plus that Yamada is really quite cute, funny… and does not have 55% of her body mass focused on her upper torso. Secondly, it conveniently and thankfully leaves out the old “clumsy protagonist falls face-first onto hot tsundere’s crotch” thing. We really, really need to move on from those ;)
- The male lead (I’m assuming he’s the male lead) actually earns a liking from me. No completely stupid or gratingly insensitive brat that only redeems himself with occasional demonstrations of GAR. This guy is… really quite sensitive. And unlike most annoying male leads who stick out like sore thumbs, this guy actually seems to try his best to blend and not stand out. He’s a gentleman too. *stamp of approval*
- The show is really kind of amusing. In the good sense that it’s jokes are actually funny. It’s also thankfully modest despite it’s adult themes. You don’t know how relieved I was to discover no outright and unadulterated nudity. I used to think that I’m pretty fanservice tolerant, but some of the recent shows are starting to freak me out.
The best part of it is that this show isn’t really about sex. That’s just the comedic device – where all the jokes come out of. It also helps to underscore Yamada’s eccentricity – and that’s about it. All that ever gets talked about in the show is Yamada’s perverse dream, but as you watch the plot unfold and observe the way the characters behave, it soon becomes quite clear. This show is about adolescent confusion and tight and mushy feelings. And that’s a love-com in its native element.
Oh did I mention having Yukari Tamura, Mamiko Noto and Kana Hanazawa on board?
Sold :)
Yes I’m still alive. Shocking but true :) So I’m presently in the midst of exploiting a precious gap in the deadline-queue to frantically put together a Google Summer of Code proposal for Plasma, so expect a wildly euphoric or drippingly dejected post on that in some weeks. It’s the typical rough time near the end of the semester now, but I thought I should at least come and do the token anisong of the season post, taking the opportunity to also pen some random thoughts about the winter season in general :)
Quite frankly winter has been a rather weak season for me, though I suspect my genre preferences may have something to do with it. Sora no Woto and even Hanamaru didn’t quite do it for me after awhile, though BakaTest manages to more or less keep up the entertainment, largely through shamelessly shipping Yuuji and Shouko :P Star show Durarara remained good, but it’s just the kind of show that’s a little heavy on the digestion, leaving me occasionally so starved for lighter entertainment that I ended up rummaging through some old titles and watching episodes of – of all things – Bamboo Blade.
Music-wise, though, winter has been pretty good. Railgun’s new pieces were expectedly decent stuff. Sora no Woto’s songs, too, managed to grow on me, somewhat in contrast with the show itself. In the end though it is the Durarara songs that somehow captured the flag of my heart this season. There’s something about the way the songs blend into the telling of the story, melodically and lyrically, that gives the songs a uniquely Durarara sound. The video sequences that played alongside each were certainly no let down either.
Oddly, if you had asked me to take a pick at the beginning of the season, I would have showered my favor on the OP – “Uragiri no Yuuyake” – without a second thought. Now at the end of the season though, I find myself liking “Trust Me” a good bit better. I’m not sure exactly how the change of heart happened, but it likely has to do with how beautifully “Trust Me” drew the curtains on many of the episodes up to this point. To me it has truly become a defining part of the Durarara experience and it probably won’t ever quite feel right to come away from a Durarara episode without first leaning back and absently rolling “Trust Me”s affectionate lyrics over the taste buds of my mind.
Anyway, so here I present you my chosen Anisong of the Season: The ED to Durarara!! – “Trust Me”. As usual, hit the jump for a pic, Romaji lyrics and translations. And hit F8 to play the song while it’s up. Enjoy!
So Railgun’s finale manages to be a pretty darn good blast of a ride – but also, simultaneously and rather oddly, a little bit of a tragedy. The final episodes managed to deliver quite well on the emotional tension, intrigue, and of course the sheer electricity one would expect of the finale of a show like Railgun. Absolutely a thrilling ride, but at the very end of it, casting our sights back over the entirety of the series, one cannot help but feel like we’ve been here before, that significant parts of the adventure we just went through bore unmistakable echoes of the series’ midpoint. I had been very happy to learn that level upper wasn’t the end, and in my opinion the episodes that followed it really weren’t bad at all. They were just nothing more, you didn’t feel like they really added value to the series – especially when a sizable chunk of them is spent on side characters who, though interesting, really didn’t matter too much when we got back to the grander scheme of things around the time of the finale. Outshining level-upper is a formidable task that the finale expectedly fumbled at, and as much as I am thankful for Railgun’s continued presence throughout this relatively dry winter season, a small part of me cannot help wishing, for it’s own sake, that Railgun had gracefully drawn the curtains in the wake of episode 12.
Even with all that said, though, the finale was one heck of a ride.
Okay, I know this is three weeks late (and that I should be doing my homework). You confused guys can have your Hideyoshi. Where do I go to sign up as a Shouko fan?
Episode 8 was pretty great and really sweet, even hitting on poignant at times. I know it’s in all likelihood only a one-episode affair. Sue me. Seeing Shouko so radiantly happy was completely enchanting. Seeing her so uncharacteristically broken and vulnerable was positively excruciating. And Yuuji tearing down hell with those two bastards was GAR. I was so fired up I could have roared him along.
We needs moar Shouko. This episode is so much better than the “desperate Eva” episode that came after it.
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