Due to the dearth of anime that interests me, I have been spending more time on manga these days. During a recent frolic in the forest of books that is Kinokuniya, I bought the first volume of Natsu no Zenjitsu (夏の前日) on a whim, as I often do when I don’t want to feel like I wasted a trip there because the new releases I was actually looking for were not yet in stock. Though these impulse buys often, by their very nature, end up disappointing, this time it turned out to be a surprisingly good purchase.

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Read the rest of Natsu no Zenjitsu (510 words)

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Post tags: good! AFTERNOON, kodansha, motoi yoshida, natsu no zenjitsu

I was just given YouTube links to what may possibly be the most incredible videos I have ever seen. I realize that this is a claim that I often make, but this time it’s different. Really.

Videos are embedded after the break.

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Read the rest of The Legend of Koizumi (348 words)

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Post tags: hu jintao, japan, junichiro koizumi, kim jong-il, mahjong, mao zedong, parody, politics, rising sun, wen jiabao, youtube, yukio hatoyama

So, I caved and bought a second-hand PS3 Slim for S$300 (about 220 USD), partly because the PS3 has finally been successfully modded with a hacked debugging dongle reminiscent of PSP’s Pandora battery. (I am a cheapskate…) The awesome part is that my ancient Dell monitor has secret HDCP-via-DVI support through a HDMI>DVI converter and displays 1080p perfectly, so I don’t have to wander out of my room into the great unknown that is my living room to forage for a Barvia.

I finally get to play that (second-hand) copy of FFXIII I bought in Japan five months ago for cheap. Having skipped right passed all the Final Fantasies released during the PS2 generation (because I am such a cheapskate that I didn’t buy a PS2 until the PS3 was released), FFXIII comes as quite a huge leap forward from my perspective. I’m a FFVIII guy, so all this tech futuristic stuff is just right up my alley. After all, there’s no real difference between magic and sufficiently advanced technology.

Anyway, some first impressions after sitting through the tutorials.

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Read the rest of Final Fantasy XIII – First Impressions (747 words)

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Post tags: final fantasy, final fantasy xiii, first impression, lightning, playstation, ps3

It’s finally here.

A few months ago, I spent 13 hours in an oversized aluminium alloy tube to get to Japan and back so that I could attend Maaya Sakamoto’s 15th anniversary concert at Budokan. A few days ago, the DVD and Blu-ray recordings arrived at my door step. A few hours ago, I finished encoding them into H264 MKV files and went out for ramen.

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Read the rest of Maaya Sakamoto 15th Memorial Live “Gift” DVD (680 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blu ray, budoukan, concert, dvd, gift, maaya sakamoto

Highschool of the Dead (HOTD) is a surprising winner once you get pass the campy title reminiscent of last-century B-grade horror movies. Despite a story set-up that is pretty generic in the zombie apocalypse genre, the series manages to mix in enough anime-unique tropes to create an entertaining blend of two vastly different subcultures.

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Read the rest of Highschool of the Dead (1,329 words)

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Post tags: apocalypse, high school, highschool of the dead, horror, survival, zombies

Kimi no Iru Machi does shounen romance like a cup of fresh milk. It’s frill-free and yet enjoyable. Sure, you could always add chocolate, bananas or space-alien girls to create a more exotic blend, but sometimes it’s nice to just savour that pure unaltered taste of simplicity.

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Read the rest of Kimi no Iru Machi (830 words)

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Post tags: kimi no iru machi, kouji seo, suzuka

Hello, it’s been a while.

Some people have been emailing me asking if I am still alive. Yes, I am. Life has been uneventful and empty recently. The mundane tedium left me somewhat creatively challenged and unable to write. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about life and my future, and I most certainly have not been wasting my time away farming Icecrown Citadel for loot in World of Warcraft. Derp.

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Read the rest of Still Alive (663 words)

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Post tags: life

The cherry blossoms bloomed early this spring, just as it did thirty years ago on Maaya Sakamoto‘s birthday. The date was 31st March and the venue was Budoukan. I stood in line at the entrance of Kitanomaru Park along with thousands on that cool spring afternoon and waited.

This is the story of the time I finally saw Maaya perform live.

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Read the rest of Maaya Sakamoto 15th Anniversary Concert (1,838 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: budoukan, maaya sakamoto, shoko suzuki, yoko kanno

Summar Wars is director Mamoru Hosoda‘s second feature film (that counts) since the unexpectedly successful Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, which rose from obscurity by word of mouth. Summer Wars is the second child in the family, the one who has to live up to the expectations of others to supersede the greatness that came before it. Did it succeed? My feelings are mixed.

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Read the rest of Summer Wars (1,006 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 19 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: mamoru hosoda, movie, summer wars

Tomorrow, 6th of January 2010, is YouTube Porn Day. Yes, 4chan’s Anonymous has once again declared war on YouTube as a reaction against perceived injustice in YouTube’s ban policies. YouTube junkies can look forward to stumbling upon some titillating surprises tomorrow.

Just don’t do it at work.

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Read the rest of A Tribute to Anonymous (510 words)

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2010. | Permalink | 13 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 4chan, anonymous, youtube, youtube porn day