Midway Done with Cognitive Examination

And by that I mean, I just finished a midterm and am completely out of it.

Got to focus on other stuff (anime time?) after I recuperate.

The Downfall of the Local Big Z

Today I visited the big red and white department store again. And it was completely closed.

What I saw was an brightly light wasteland of empty shelves and random "CLOSING SALE" signs everywhere.

The especially powerful view was the lack of the Big Red Signs. All that's left are the outlines... after being covered all these, they now reveal a black stain that lingers and speaks of what was. I even had the chance to see the big signs on a truck bed. Up close, they were quite huge and exuded strength in this weakness.

Farewell you slightly lower quality store. I shall miss you after all these years of serving us Z pillows, a mediocre electronics section, and random shoes that broke after half a year. You successor has some shoes to fill indeed.

Offline Reading in my Pocket

Yet another lame and obvious pun for a title, but I'm liking this app so much that I thought I'd do a quick post about it.

I've been reading a whole lot of readings for my classes with this. It's great cause it makes webpages into a cellphone readable format for quick and easy use. You just "Pocket" the thing you're looking at and it'll be available to all the devices that have Pocket. It used to be called "Read it Later", so that's pretty much its main use for me, although it does save images and you can view videos (though not offline).

Get it at the link here. It's for Apple devices and Android, as well as for PCs as either an extension (for Chrome) or a bookmarklet.

A Sing Song Happy Birthday to Chihaya!

Happy Birthday Chihaya!

It's the singing diva with a cool demeanor, Chihaya Kisaragi's Birthday! This time it's our turn to sing for you.

Also, it's time for new Birthday banners from the idolmaster.jp site!

And here's a cute little video someone made for her birthday. Featuring Haruka, the ever so great friend. A laughing or smiling Chihaya is a nice thing indeed.

Nico

500+ pages of Backlog

This time around, I spent the day going to yet another huge backlog fest through that one certain webcomic. So many time/universe shenanigans and even the introduction of new characters makes it a little hard to follow at times. I believe I'm about 500 or so pages to go before I get caught up. Hopefully it'll be 3 years (in-story) by then.

Sifting through Bins and Shelves at Z

Z being a certain Canadian retailer going down and being taken over by the American T. Sounds like the making of a zombie game or movie.

Today was one of the few ending days for these stores, so of course there's a chance to find some buried treasure for a somewhat cheap price.

The only things I got were this one animated movie that flopped in sales, but was absolutely glorious in terms of graphics. You know the one.

The next one is a sequel to a video game that I was gifted a long while ago. Takes place in this underwater dystopia filled with crazies, little girls, and big lunks of metal. Hooray for philosophy and super powers!

These stores are closing quite soon, so I might visit again in a week to pick up some more goodies. Who knows what could be left on these barren shelves.

Upgrading from 100 to 300

And by that I mean my Sony headphones. Apparently there was a pretty neat sale going on where I got another pair of headphones that is one tier higher than the previous ones I got. And hey, they even got a cosmetic upgrade in the form of this metallic shine on the ear/driver side of things.

What's the difference? Other than the retail price, there's actually quite a noticeable difference. From a muddy sounding tunnel to a much clearer thumping sound, I quite like the improvement. Also the colours went from white to black, so it's a lot subtler now.

Now to try these out on a loud bus. These things don't really block any ambient noise, but with the clearer sound it at least be a little nicer even in loud environments.

Catching up on a 1000 Page Backlog

I spent most the day gradually catching up on a certain infamous webcomic/movie/whatever. I haven't touched it for probably a year already as it was about to reach a climactic finish to an arc. So when I decided to pick it up again, I'm greeted with more than 1000 pages worth of reading/watching/etc. As thoroughly confusing as it always is, I still remember enough details to make it enjoyable.

A Taste of Tablet Jelly

Today marks the day I upgraded my tablet once again.

This time from the oh so delicious Ice Cream Sandwich to the sweet and sticky Jelly Bean. It's just a development build at the moment, so it really does feel a bit "sticky" instead of the expected buttery performance touted by other phones and tablets.

However, the biggest change to come would be the really nice feature addition of "Google Now". Even though it's pretty much like a glorified Google Search (which it actually is), it comes with a neat new look, offline voice recognition (yes!) and the ability to think for itself (by stalking your location). Very nice. Also, the voice is much better than the old Pico, the old robotic voice of past.

Now I wait for more updates, as well as the hopefully soon to come updates to my phone!

Into the SONE

"secret base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~" performed by SONE, featuring Miichan, Kitarie, Myao, and Sasshi.

Best AKB48 unit? I think yes.

Watch the video for the BEST cover of secret base (by ZONE) ever.


I actually first saw this during the Request Hour 2013. Though not "new" at all, I found it absolutely hilarious, and somehow this one is even more so.

Back From Break; Test Terminated

Hooray alliteration.

So it's back from that week long break to the good ole school. What faces us first? A super vague midterm that no one has any clue what it could be about or how long it is.

But then the test was actually a lot easier than I thought. What could've been paragraphs and paragraphs of short answers, was actually just under 20 multiple choice questions with one extremely easily fill-in the blank question.

A disappointment and a blessing, since this small test was worth quite a lot so every answer was at least 1% of our grade.

Cramming and Leveling

And by leveling, I mean the sort of thing you do in Photoshop.

Pretty much all this... not much else tonight since there's a lot of stuff to complete and study for. A horribly vague midterm awaits.

Fried and thick; curry and plain

Wow a food post! Except no pictures since the place was super dark and the stuff would definitely look worse in picture format.

Today was a classmate's super large birthday dinner where we all crowded around in a weird sushi place. And by weird I mean weird even by Japanese weird standards. Filled with moderately loud music, dark candlelit-only tables, and huge rainbow coloured models of animals hanging from the ceiling, this place really had "strange" and "weird" as part of its style.

However I was a little bit disappointed in the food I chose. I got this sushi that was a mix of eel, tuna (I think?) some mayo all a bit fried up tempura style. What I tasted was a amalgamation of mayo-eel-friedness that can only be described as "thick". Though somewhat good, I certainly think I should have gone for something more... describable or at least with more distinct flavouring. Supposedly it was going to be spicy, but I didn't feel any of it. And the portion size vs cost was obviously more expensive than your normal types of sushi.

Then I went on to try curry udon as per a friend's recommendation. Turns out that it's not quite like he expected, as it certainly did not have the typical Japanese style. Instead it was more like udon dunked into a curry soup with a minuscule amount of "green". Next time I get udon, I'll just go to a noodle house.

All in all, the atmosphere was certainly very different and the food was strange as well as plain (if you get anything BUT the strange sushi). I'd hoped that others got better choices than I did, and if I come next time I'll scheme up a plan to pool together the different sushi to get a taste of everything.

Lovely Live and μ's (Muse)

From the title you might be able to guess that this post is about Love Live! the anime.

It's been probably 3 years since I first heard about this strange venture into an idol group made up of assorted characters, cds, and 3DCG music videos. I'm not sure about the original reception of the MVs, but for me it was interesting but lukewarm at best. The CG was awkward and strange, sort of reminding me of MMDs or those really silly Pretty Cure ending themes. Although of course the quality of the CG should have been higher since it is produced by a professional company right?

Anyways enough about the past, I really didn't look into them to much, but I just saw them in a random magazine.

I recently completed the first 6 episodes of this anime so I'm up to date as of this post. I came in a bit sceptical because of the story, but hey I just completed AKB0048 and I love Idolm@ster so why not have another idol anime in the mix?

And though a tiny bit slow at first, I grew to actually enjoy this series somewhat. The premise of saving the school from closing really reminded me of Manabi Straight, even though that's through sheer positiveness and character instead of singing and dancing (even though there was a bit of that too). It's nice to see a group that is struggling a bit to achieve a goal while also becoming better in ways they would never expect. What starts as just saving the school could very well lead to national fame... but of course they obviously don't start that way.

For the 6 episodes, it's very much half characters introduction/induction into the club, and half building up their skills to be better and better. Not much to say about them other than that some of them can really singing, while there is at least one who has such an incredibly squeaky voice that it completely threw off the song that they sung for their first live. Of course this is just my opinion, but although I'm quite happy listening to some so-called "cutesy" voices of Yui from K-on (as an example), I was really off put by this. Perhaps it's just the combination of voices that throws it off.

I guess it also goes without saying that some of these girls can really sing quite well. I'm really liking the sound of the pianist girl, Maki Nishikono, plus the girl that somewhat reminds me of Mio from K-on, Umi Sonoda. I almost deluded myself into expecting a stronger vocal cast, but oh well I can ignore the squeaky voice for now.

All in all, I guess I'll continue watching to see where these girls are headed in the end. Will they save their school? Will they become top idol? Will the student council girls sound wonderful?


Also, this post is sorely lacking pictures as it is currently. Perhaps I'll edit in some screencaps of random moments later. And the title is also a reference to the concert DVDs I just finished watching of the great MomoClo 410 concert. I'll do a post on that sometime in the future.

Talks, Dance, and PHP

As a little bit of a break from the normal anime watching week I've had, I actually went to school today even though there were no classes.

Although a bit late, I got the last half of a series of presentations from various designers from big companies who each had similar yet differing views on Design and stuff. Lots of great comments during the panel too, especially with the 2 open-ended questions that were apparently "designed" to be tricky to answer. Then they had the chance to do interviews with student prospects, although I didn't bother since I'm not quite at that level yet. Got to get my portfolio up to speed soon.

Then it was some weird internet dance meme recording that I somehow got roped into. Quite funny, wearing a silly hat and doing some "dancing".

Afterwards, I spent the time at school being unproductive for a bit, then getting into gear with something much more productive compared to what I've currently been doing for the week:
Learning PHP (and SQL).

Why? Because it's kind of like the foundation of modern day web design other than HTML, CSS and perhaps Javascript. At least, that's what I've gathered from my lack of any in-depth research. Anyways, trying to learn it is kinda annoying since I'm following a somewhat older guide with a newer configuration. Hopefully I'll get this done as quick as possible so I can move on to something more interesting.

0048 Handshakes and WOTA

After yesterday's somewhat cursory post about AKB0048, I ended up marathoning the rest of the season (plus a bit of the next) with my bro. What an amazing experience it was indeed.

I'll probably string a few posts along following this quick ride through this series that really surprised me.

First fan letters! This is going to be good right?

For now I'll start at episode 6, an episode about anti-fans and mainly focusing Orine plus their first handshake event. The handshake events are, from what I gather, an actual tradition for the real AKB48. Of course their original, and possibly current, motto was something like "We are the idols you can meet!", which at their main stage at Akihabara was really true when they first started. Though of course, they're now ultra famous so that might not be quite as true anymore.


The anti-fan of the future(?)

Handshaking. The best way to meet your idol.

A great reference introduced in that episode are the WOTA's who are these super fans that do more than loud chants and wotagei. They also protect the idols with their own machines and cyalumissles! They even have their own itasha robots that they use to fight!

Tiger! Fire! Cyber! Fiber! Diver! Viber!

This episode really brought together a greater sense of community with the fans, and brought about more than just bitterness from even the so-called "Antis" or "Haters". It also provides ongoing growth and exposure for the 77th understudies as they aim to be successors.

And now for some assorted episode screencaps.

Takamina, giving a pep talk. Great leadership as always.

Sashiko (aka Rino Sashihara)!

Cyalumissles! Courtesy of WOTA.

Itasha of the future.



Orine fighting for justice with her micsaber.



And happiness for all.

Idols in Space vers. 0048

Idols in space have certainly been done before (like Macross), but what if you add in one of the most prolific idols groups of all time into the mix?

And that's where AKB0048 comes in heralding the name of AKB48 into anime.

Now today I got around to seeing the first 5 episodes of the show. I find it quite funny that the so-called successors are actually not voiced by their namesakes, but are voiced by famous voice actors instead. Although I'm not really a fan of AKB48, I still did a bit of research and knew about probably half of the successors' like the General Manager Takamina or the "android girl" Mayuyu. Even funnier is seeing Chieri, who is voiced by the real Mayuyu, talk with 00 Mayuyu, voiced by Yukari Tamura.

Anyways I'm not really sure how I feel about the show right now. I'm not a huge fan of purely ensemble songs if I can't hear at least some distinct groups/solos, though I have to admit that I loved "Aitakatta" when I first heard it all those years ago. Some of the orchestraic mixs of the AKB songs were actually really nice, as I felt some chills hearing Aitakatta like that. Even Heavy Rotation sounded quite different and nice. The fact that I can recognize the majority of the songs sung probably meant my "research" was successful.

Aside from songs, I'm quite liking the characters, though I believe they have a lot more development to go before they become much better characters. Nagisa kind of reminds me of Ranka from Macross F, with her amateurish voice that really fits as newbie idol character. Though I have yet to hear her sing solo, so I'm only comparing the voice acting part.

The random references to stuff were also amusing though it also made everything that should be "serious" sound quite funny like the ship "Flying Get". Though I guess this is the type of show that you're not supposed to take too seriously. Though there is that serious reference to Acchan being one of the greatest AKBs to graduate, which was nice.

Now I just hope this series decides to develop their characters more and be enjoyable even to a cursory AKB fan. Perhaps it'll get me into them a little bit more. Though I am still a "Beginner".

Birdie (?) and Mochi

Magician?

Bird?

Finally a chance to watch Winter 2013 anime!

Today, I had the chance to watch Kyoto Animation's latest creation : Tamako Market! Continuing on with the K-on styled character designs by Yukiko Horiguchi, this is an original KyoAni creation.

The first episode seems slow, but it has the great cinematography as expected of KyoAni as well as some nice music that reminds me of some old anime.

More posts to come as I watch it! I gotta catch up on some Chuunibyou as well, but this is looking to be a fun and interesting series. I'm already liking colourful cast.

"THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE" Announcement + PV!

プロデューサーさん、劇場版ですよ、劇場版！！！idolmaster-anime.jp #imas #project_imas
— アイドルマスター (@imas_anime) February 10, 2013

It's a movie! A movie!

So yes, there was an official announcement for an Idolm@ster anime movie, aptly named "THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE" for now. The staff behind this is pretty much identical to the anime series with A-1 Pictures animating, Atsushi Nishigori directing, and double team script writing with Tatsuya Takahashi.

More details to follow on February the 28th in the April Issue of Megami Magazine.


And here's the English text that flashed throughout the PV, which is also currently on the Idolm@ster homepage here :

The idols of 765 Productions continue on their never ending journey,
--towards a new stage, towards a bright and shiny future!

Girls and their producer have gone through thick and thin,
and have stood face to face with all kinds of difficulties.

It's time again for the girls to foster their friendship,
and through great discipline they step forward to their starry future
in an all new production, we present to you "THE IDOLM@STER MOVIE"

Source: @imas_anime, THE IDOLM@STER Anime site, anidb (staff translation)

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Happy Year of the Snake with Cirno! | Source

Hooray for the Lunar New Year! This year, celebrating with Cirno!

Synth, Volunteer and Food

Today was a strangely interesting day.

A friend came over about a project and then he got curious about the random electric organ we had laying around. So he tried it out. For maybe almost an hour. And it was great. Little did I know that you could just use this as a sort of poor man's synth as I recorded all the electric noises with my crappy phone microphone.

So now I'm quite a bit more interested in using the electric organ and keyboard once again! No longer do I have to worry about lack of note-reading skills. Just randomly playing around and making some cool tunes is good enough for now.


Then I had some volunteering to do for this event at my school. Lots of neat projects to look at, though sadly I didn't get a chance to watch the films as I was tending the front table.

After that there was a reception dinner. There was so much food, that even the volunteers got to eat! And it was really quite good, much better than the pizza we had for "dinner" earlier.

Fun Run with Fright (and MomoClo)

I've been meaning to attempt to get [back] in shape for a while and I thought "Running is easy!", but I was too lazy to even start it. Partly because I don't like people staring, partly because I also sprint halfway through due to boredom and that causes me to be drained really quickly.

So I tried out "Runnin' with Zombs" (really called "Zombies, Run!") after hearing about it a while back. I didn't think I find the "time" to do it, but today there was a random power outage (probably city work), so I decided to take the opportunity to go out and do something. I put on my cheapo headphones and zip up my light coat and walked out while listening to the sounds of the drama.

At first I didn't know whether to run or not since you start in a helicopter, so I just leisurely walked. I felt a bit weird walking/jogging with headphones on, so maybe I'll just wear in-ears instead. The jog was fun, but cut short since I had the bright idea to restart the thing plus I had to get to class later.

In the end it was quite nice, and having Momoiro Clover blasted into my ears while running away from zombies was also an pleasant experience. I'll just have to keep this up every few days and maybe I'll be a little more fit.

FF1 : Bridge past Coneria

Yay for emulators!

Anyways, today I played some more Final Fantasy I. This time around I wasn't getting destroyed by imps since I found out you had to equip stuff manually. Go figure.

So off to beat Garland with some real weapons. It was a cheesy battle since he kept missing me.

Then we saved the Princess, got a lute and has a bridge built just for us. All good, until we got on the bridge where suddenly... the title credits show up with the iconic Final Fantasy theme!

So that's it for "level 1", and now I'm off to see a witch.

Screenshots from an Android NES emulator.

The Title with awesome music.

Off to the Bridge

So these guys never left the continent eh?

Sadly, no Dancer class in this game.

Interaction and Brainstorming

Today the class had to do this brainstorm ideas method where we write up a ton of quick ideas on a fairly large amount of postit notes. Then we arranged these all in groups on a big whiteboard and rated these ones by different ways such as the business way, the user's way, and the developers way.

Then we went on to do mindmapping the one I did was kind of weird.

Performing: An Art

So today we did some more art related stuff. This time it's all about strange diagrams and "performing arts". There's a fine distinction between that and "performance arts", but I won't go into it.

Just enough that we got to see some dude kick ice around and move a mountain.

And some other guy who put clay (or something) on his face to create really crazy shapes and faces. Then he manages to scare people by tearing into it sometimes.

Four Black Blocks and FX

Fun motion graphics time!

Today I have to complete my little homework involving some After Effects, where I make some blocks do stuff. I'm learning as I go and it's quite a bit of fun! It's like Flash, except less stressful somehow.

Double the Rackets and Some Kneeling

So today was the second day of tennis fun. Should have been double the fun with doubles, but sadly enough our team did not win. Oh well I just hope tomorrow is better, though I won't be there to watch it.

Then I headed back home for some food, then went straight back past the tennis action for some singing and silence. The experience was good and the food was unexpectedly awesome. Oh how I like baked meaty goodness.

Yellow Orbs and Rackets

So today I got to watch two nice and fun tennis matches with the unexpected arrival of tickets from a fellow family member (thanks dad!).

First one was quite long and tight.

Second one was almost a sweep for our team. Yikes. Though it was actually the more intense match due to the more aggressive players plus the fairly good amount of deuces.

First time watching real players playing real tennis live. Also first time watching them for so long.