Saucy ad or political commentary?
Right on the front cover of today’s Sun newspaper.
Props to the crew who came up with the idea, if it was an intentional poke at current events in Malaysia.
Kendowned!
Woot! Total winner of a week for ‘Bamboo Blade’.
The Muroe High team narrowly wins the regional match, their first step towards nation-wide domination. I had expected to see more outta everyone’s favourite team captain Kirino, though. Especially since there was so much drama surrounding her leading up to the tourney… I thought the scriptwriters would have her snap during her match and totally stomp her opponent. Well, she did trash her opponent anyway, it was just a lot cleaner than I expected. :P
The child prodigy of the team was without doubt the star of episode 17 , instead. Tamaki who’s usually the most calm and courteous member of the team, goes absolutely nuts. Toujou High’s champ attempts to cheeze a win by injuring Tamaki prior to their match, but it only pisses Muroe’s tiny terror off even more. Thanks to that, we have perhaps the most awesome match in the entire series thus far.
Funnily enough, the whole match consisted of just a single strike. But wtf. That’s a strike Konishi would be feeling for days if she were real. :P Come to think of it, that’s the only tsuki I’ve seen in any of the matches so far… and only the second time it’s been performed in the entire series. Seeing Tamaki playing the intimidation game was way cool as well, it was like watching a mix between Mickey Mouse and Hannibal Lecter.
Pissed-off Tamaki in all her glory. Judging from the way her shinai bent, I’d say she was really looking to do some damage.
“Ouch” doesn’t even begin to describe that scene. Another honorable mention from the series is Kirino’s cadence call during their training camp:
You can’t get rid of the chestplate’s stench!
The mold of the rainy season are our friends!
Sliding step, succession step, and lateral steps!
You can’t use your shinai as golf clubs!
You can’t use your shinai as baseball bats either!
Too bad they didn’t provide subs for the rest of the song, cuz the chars started talking. :( Ah well. I had my doubts about this series earlier on, but it seems to be picking up alright.
Such a travesty!
One of our local homegrown Malaysian TV channels has adopted A Cruel Angel’s Thesis as their weather report muzak. Hearing a horrible midi-ish rendition of the Neon Genesis Evangelion soundtrack as some asshat droned on about the weather in BM was just wrong on so many levels. *Sigh*
But I guess that’s another achievement for the NGE franchise. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of an anime series’ theme song being used in such a way. Hell, I have to wonder if these guys actually paid for the rights to use the song or if they just found the midi online somewhere.
The first step towards enlightenment.
Refer to this announcement made by one of the best-known Naruto fansubbing groups, Dattebayo.
In a hilarious turn of events, a prominent fansubbing group cries foul over the illegal distribution of their work. It seems people have been uploading their fansubs to video streaming sites against their wishes, and they’re getting pissy over it. Does anyone fail to see the irony in this story? It’s like our roadside DVD pirates complaining that people are cloning their products and selling them without their permission. ROFL.
I’m all for fansubbing, if viewers actually paid the distributors for the real deal after that. But I have no illusions whatsoever about where the issue stands on a moral/legal level. Without question, it’s a violation of the distributors/producers’ rights. Yet these fansubbers are talking as if they’re on the high moral ground. They’re talking about how they’re being disrespected when their work is uploaded against their wishes, etc lawl! It’s just absurd how they call people out for doing to them what they do to the anime studios.
I’m not condemning their work, it’s their decision to make. As it is ours whether we choose to download stuff, and whether we choose to follow up by paying for the goods later. But whining when the exact same thing is done to them is just bad form. Do unto others as you would have em do unto you, neh? Though in this particular case that quote is applied in a negative sense, heheh.
Where’s the beef?
Why, oh why? You’d think they’d be a little bit busy cleaning up the billion and one messes in this country of ours. But noooo, our glorious leaders always find time to make an ass of themselves. I think the whole issue arose due to the fact that locally we have always assumed that ‘Allah’ refers to the Muslim God, while ‘Tuhan’ is the generic terms.
If the original word in Arabic is really used in reference to any deities in general, I really don’t see what the whole argument is about. It’s not even our nation’s language, the gov’t really has no say in the matter. But since it’s touching on religion in Malaysia and I’m not fond of vertical bars, I shall refrain from commenting any further and instead supply the link.
Disclaimer: I have no opinion whatsoever on the following article, and am merely linking it for informational purposes. I have nothing but the utmost respect for my fellow Malaysians of different races/religions.
Linkage: Malaysian row over word for ‘God’
Tis the season to be jolly?
Hrm. Doesn’t really feel Christmassy, somehow. The rest of the household’s been away at a convention since Thursday so it’s a tad bit quiet around here. Oh well, not like they celebrate Christmas anyway eh?
Did my shopping online this year, which turned out to be a bad idea. The stuff seems to be taking forever to get delivered… bleh. I had assumed that online stores would step up shipment speeds around this season due to the Christmas deadline, but I guess another way to look at it would be that they’re probably swamped with orders. All you recipients, no griping… better late than never!
In any case, I still have a bit of Christmas shopping left to do; gotta pick something up for the gift exchange at M’s dinner. I had this totally awesome idea for a gift, which I would probably get if the get together was being hosted by anyone else. But considering M is rather devout, it’d be kinda disrespectful and he’d probably smite my evil ass. So I’ll just snicker to myself at the idea rather than actually going through with it. See, people? I’m not totally insensitive to such matters!
Talk about a superb idea for an anonymous gift exchange, eh?
Oh, how I’d love to see the reaction of whichever (un)lucky sod got the gift. Almost on par with the gift we got BK a few years back (see YS’s vid on YouTube, lolol). Ah well, I’ll have to go hunt for something more generic later today. ^^
Love/Hate Relationship.
My Basilisk box set arrived last week, and I was pleasantly surprised. I found their package design rather appealing, with much credit going to the exquisitely-tied red ribbon holding the disc box/case together. Unfortunately, it’s also the source of much grief for me. Anyhow as per request, here are pics of the box:
Outer Box (Kouga Clan art):
Inner Box (Iga Clan art):
DVD box and the source of much grief:
While I absolutely love the look of the DVD box + ribbon, I hate it in terms of practicality. There’s no way to get my discs out without untying that thing. And because of the way it’s tied and the stiffness of the ribbon, I’m pretty sure there’ll be creases in the ribbon if I untie/retie it. Ugh, I so wanna check the DVDs out, but at the same time I don’t wanna ruin the ribbon. :(
Anyhow, props to Funimation for a visually-pleasing product. Now work on making things more user-friendly!
South Park to be freely available online!
You heard right. While the anime industry is still debating the merits of fansubbing, South Park + MTV are taking a gamble and tackling the issue head on. They’re planning to make the series freely available online as of next year! Let’s hear a big ‘woot!’ from all South Park fans!
P/s: Don’t forget to support them a lil and buy their merch if you like the series!
Linkage: Full story @ News.com.
Seiyuu Shockers!
The wonders of the internet… there’s practically no limit to the useless little facts you can pick up each day!
The voice acting biz has always been amusing for me, when you compare the different chars a VA has played. Actual actors generally tend to get pigeonholed into playing a ‘type’ of character in most of their films, but the voice acting biz seems to be a bit more flexible. So for your daily dose of useless knowledge, here’s five VAs who have played different roles that made me go ‘WTF?’:
That’s right, folks. Our badass ninja-on-the-run, Momochi Zabuza of Naruto fame… spends his time preening and primping his flowing golden locks during his private moments in his castle far, far, away! Right, he’s also Prince Charming in the J-dub of Shrek 2. Who woulda thought that one of the Hidden Mist’s seven swordsmen would be turn out to be one of em pretty boys?
Heheheh, golden. Next up, we have Edward Elric from the Full Metal Alchemist series! But our little adventuring state alchemist has a little secret… he occasionally goes drag to hunt yoma as Teresa, *the* Claymore. To be honest, I really think he/she/it kicks more ass as Teresa. Her swordsmanship trashes Edward’s clapping magic crap anytime!
Whoa. The calm, collected and somewhat stoned Kisaragi Saemon of Basilisk. We all know he’s a master of disguise and can mimic voices, but really… how the hell does a person imitate a tiny, loud, cheeky lil bastage of a frog? Props to Ueda Yuji for managing to play em both, since they both sound different as hell to begin with.
Why am I not surprised? The most pitiful character ever and a crappy Evangelion pilot, has turned out to be a part-time magical girl. Ikari Shinji, a.k.a Sailor Uranus. Hell, she’s prolly got more balls than him.
Ahahahaha, last but not least! The ultimate paradox… the famed Wolverine of the X-Men (J-dub) is voiced by Ebara Masashi. Anime circles might be more familiar with the other char he plays… Maito Gai aka Gai Sensei, LAWL! Imagining Wolverine pulling off the ‘nice guy’ pose with that sparkling smile is just SO wrong! Or him blabbing about it being the springtime of his youth… you get the idea, heheh.
Dude, where’s my car?
Heh. Had an ‘oh noes’ moment today, at Phileo Damansara. I was heading off after an interview, when I ran into a slight problem… my car had sorta gone missing. Normally I’m pretty bad at remembering little details like the row/column I parked at, so this time I came prepared. I had jotted it down on my phone when I first parked… right by the F8 pillar.
But when it was time to head off, the car simply wasn’t there. Everything looked right, the spot was right in front of the ramp coming down to the floor, and there was still a car in front of where I had parked. Only this time I noticed, the spot where I had left my car wasn’t really a parking spot after all! Heck, I coulda sworn I had seen markings on the ground when I first parked there.
So 2+2 = 4; I assumed my car got impounded or something for illegal parking. Kinda extreme, neh? As I walked around looking for some place to talk to a uniform about the missing car, I spotted a sign that said illegally parked cars would be clamped. Which kinda made me go hrmmmm, cuz if they had clamped my car it’d still be there, no? Which led me to theory #2: ZOMG MY CAR GOT STOLEN? Why?! There are so many better cars parked around it!
Anyhow, I made some calls hoping to hitch a ride home while I sorted the whole matter out. Then a thought struck me; did I park on floor B2, or B3? Yep, there you have it. The car was exactly where I left it… right beside the F8 pillar, in front of the down ramp. One floor above. But in my defense, the layout of both floors were identical! :P
P/s: And yes, the spot I had really parked in WAS a parking spot! Beats me why the one on B3 didn’t have markings, when everything else was the same as B2.
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