I caught episode six of Macross last night and having touched on the awesomeness that is of the Macross series before. This episode only serve to reinforce that belief.
In short, picking up on where the last episode; the Frontier colony braces itself for war with the Vajra. It’s probably too late for the poor residents of Galaxy as they bore the brunt of the Vajra’s assault but officially the word was still to rescue any survivors and maybe to vanquish the biological-weapon system known as the Vajra.
Coming from the home colony of Galaxy; Sheryl was naturally devastated with the news of the tragic turn of events, still she puts on a brave face in front of the media and refuses to cancel her concert even when a state of emergency was declared in Frontier.
Salvation came in a package of long flowing blue tresses and impossibly cute face ^^;
With Alto (who came to return her earring) Sheryl was able to open up a little more about her past before she became an idol while living in Galaxy. For some reason this made me quite happy. Although the story seems to be setting up the stage for an eventual Ranka x Alto pairing -Sheryl is most likely to be that one girl who *almost* become the romantic lead- I find myself rooting for a Sheryl x Alto pair.
Could it be that I am being expertly played along by the story such that; even I see the trap, recognize that its a trap and will still willingly step into the trap by investing my hopes on a union that is never to be… *sniff*
We will find out soon…
↑Picture of Alto-hime hijacked with thanks from FullMoePanic
Ever since I returned to regular watching of anime, I’ve been trying to catch up to the backlog accumulated over 2~3 years. I’m glad to say I’ve finished most of what I wanted to watch and now will be moving on to current shows! whoopee!!
The list in question – not in order of preference :
Itazura na kiss 「イタズラなKiss」
Based on a shoujo manga by Tada Kaoru serialised in Margaret.
It was love at first sight for Aihara Kotoko as top student Irie Naoki delivers a speech on the first day of high school. After 2 years of secret admiration, “I don’t want it” is the rejection she gets when she plucks up enough courage to hand him a love letter. Rejected, Kotoko vows to give him up. By a twist of fate, Kotoko’s house collapses; her dad and her put up at a friend’s place, who happens to be Naoki’s father. And thus, life with Naoki begins and Kotoko’s love for Naoki rekindles again. Much laughter ensues when scatterbrain Kotoko makes her countless advances (supported by Naoki’s wacky mum) on ice-cold Naoki who hates girls and is a genius at practically everything from studies to sports. – From AniDB
This one is quite a surprise for me as I thought this kind of story-line was over used. Admittedly its true but the true saver of this show for me was the characters: the male protagonist (Irie Naoki) who had ice flowing in his veins; dumb (but endearing) female lead (Aihara Kotoko); perhaps the most awesome is the mother of Naoki… It seems that she had longed for a daughter for a looong time so when Koto-chan showed up she was determined to make her as a daughter-in-law. As such she was often seen trying to bring Koto-chan and Nao-kun together by coming with various schemes with often laughable results. Did I also mention she used to dressed Naoki in girl’s clothes when he was young? LOL
I believe I will be following this series to its end. To hell with high-brow type animes =x
Macross Frontier 「マクロス . F」
In the year 2059 AD, the human race has overcome the crisis of imminent extinction resulting from the inter-planetary war against giant aliens Now, emphasizing species preservation, they set out for the far cornersof the Galaxy to find new frontiers.
In Macross Frontier, the 25th space fleet, used for very long distance emigration, ferries more than 10 million people living mainly in the New Joint Forces’ battleship that is combined with a residential ship. The spaceship, that has an artificial environment not different from that of the Earth, is traveling near the center of the Galaxy.
One day, an idol singer named Sheryl Nome, born in Macross Galaxy, another emigrant fleet near by, visits Macross Frontier to hold a concert. She is a proud top idol, and her songs are always high up on the Galaxy Network hit charts.
There is a girl who wishes to be like a Sheryl. Her name is Ranka Lee. She is an ordinary high school student works part-time at a Chinese restaurant. Her elder brother, Ozma, is her only family. He is an ace pilot and the head of the Valkyrie Special Forces Squad, SMS. Because he loves his sister very much, he keeps it secret that he is a pilot of a dangerous fighter.
When Ranka attends Sheryl’s long-awaited concert, she meets a high school student, Saotome Alto, who is in flight school. It is supposed to be a common meeting….
Meanwhile, Frontier encounters unknown enemies. They aren’t Earthians or aliens, but unknown space creatures. The ships of the fleet are damaged one by one. The creatures’ power is so strong that they brush aside VF squads and break through to the residential areas. To sweep them out, VF-25 squad, lead by Ozuma, is dispatched. How many are they? What abilities do they have? What is their purpose? – From AnimeNfo
Wait for me while I go dig up my thesaurus to describe how much win this one has…
Ah, maybe forget it. ^^; I’ve only watch a few mecha types before (Eva, FMP…) and the original Choujikuu Yousai Macross but I find myself enjoying it immensely. Probably due to the fact that I’m an old fart and watching this bring back memories of the original Macross I saw.
Massive space traveling colony – checked
Singing idol – checked
Hot shot pilot – checked
Ace pilot mentor – checked
Sexy variable fighter – checked
Threat from unknown aliens – checked
What is there not to like when one also enjoys the original series? =)
Nyan nyan CM performed by Ranka herself. Deculture!! =P
Honorable mention – Kurenai, Soul eater
Borderline – Kyoran Kazoku Nikki, Nabari no Ou, Kanokon, ToLoveRu, Vampire Knight, Toshokan Sensou, Wagaya no Oinari sama
I found this picture listed on stumbleupon a few minutes ago. Props if one can identify more than 5 famous scientists =P
Perhaps the most famous conference was the October 1927 Fifth Solvay International Conference on Electrons and Photons, where the world’s most notable physicists met to discuss the newly formulated quantum theory. The leading figures were Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Einstein, disenchanted with Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle,” remarked “God does not play dice.” Bohr replied, “Einstein, stop telling God what to do.” (See Bohr-Einstein debates.) Seventeen of the twenty-nine attendees were or became Nobel Prize winners, including Marie Curie, who alone among them, had won Nobel Prizes in two separate scientific disciplines.
Just started on my mini-project last night to rip and sub Evangelion series in english.
Now before anyone gives me a harangue about copyright. Here are some points:
1. I own the original vcd which I bought a long time ago. I believe it was imported from HK hence the cantonese dub. Argh
2. Sub will never be released in the public domain.
So why bother you say?
1. I tried to re-watch Evangelion recently which was quietly gathering dust somewhere. Having fully experienced the quality of recent animes I find myself unable to properly enjoy the series I own.
a. Tonnes of VCD compression artefacts
b. Audio is one channel only
c. Reading traditional chinese subtitles is downright harzardous to my eyes. Traditional chinese character have even more strokes than their kanji counterparts and on a low quality VCD, it kinda becomes a blob of white lines. [Will post screens later]
I now currently on the stage of adapting a script I’ve found online into Aegisub syntax. Timing/typesetting will probably take me a very long time. =P
I’m also hunting for a good filter to remove the original hardsub. Tested MSU filter without success so far, although their VCD deblocker worked nicely. ^^
Hooray for opensource =x
*sings a ditty*
♪眞一郎の♪
♪うしろに♪
♪アブラムシ♪
Nothing to do with Eva or open-source, just a song stuck in my head no thanks to a certain anime. (-_-”)
There you have it, just as the tagline says “a chain of short stories about their distance”
3 parts in this series, first two parts are around 25mins long and the concluding piece is just over 10mins. Gave it a try when I read about this from various anime blogs. The anime is as polished as I read it was, so pretty it made me tap my screen capture key a little too much. ;P
Mandatory sakura blossom scene. This is what the title is referring to, 5cm/s is the speed of falling sakura petals as told by Akari (the girl on the left)
First part introduces us to Takaki and Akari. That’s the two in the pictures. It seems that both of them have something in common and unfortunately that common thing happens to be that both have quite a vagabond-ish kind of life. So its not surprising that the two onely souls who didn’t have much friends find comfort in each other.
As testament that life sucks both in real life and anime, Akari had to change schools again. But still she and Takaki manages to keep in touch mostly using snail mail. Kind of surprising how both of them kept up to a long distance relationship without any aid from modern tech added to the fact that both of them were pretty young (middle schoolers) means they have the maturity that is needed for this kind of thing.
Soon after even Takaki have to move away to a remote island (Gawd).
As things goes he wanted to see Akari before he leaves so off he goes on a train all the way to Iwafune in the dead of winter.
The ticket will wipe out his allowance =P
Trains running late – bad weather is common in winter. Which is why you must always plan ahead.
Nice watch
3 hours late…
and she is still waiting…
Moe moment going on here, crying and coat grabbing ^^;
Sorry about the crappy captioning. lol
Right, back on topic. The train scenes are what I think is central to this part. Lots of monologues from Takaki as he got plenty of time to reflect on himself, recall events from the past and worries about Akari. Bad thing happened was when he lost the letter he had written which he was gonna give to Akari. *sigh*
Anyway the meeting didn’t go bad. Eating handmade food from bento (lucky bastard ^^) and taking walk in the falling snow to the sakura tree where they kissed.
Snow falls at 5cm/s just like sakura blossoms.
The next morning Takaki had to leave, without telling her about the letter he had lost (he felt that something had changed after the kiss). Interesting was that apparently Akari had written a letter too. So why she had not given him her letter? Hmmm…
I have been mulling over what to write for my 1st post here in kikenshisou. I had already decided that it should be something I have more than a passing interest in recently, which will be anime and also all thing Japanese. So on Thursday while wading through my rss feeds I came across this article about an animated short film Megumi Yokota (横田めぐみ)
The anime is available in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English, so no worries about not understanding the audio. Video streaming is also available from:
Megumi Yokota (Japanese: 横田めぐみ; Yokota Megumi), born October 15, 1964-March 13, 1994?, is one of at least thirteen Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was abducted on November 15, 1977 at the age of thirteen and apparently forced to help train North Korean spies to pass as Japanese citizens. In 2002, North Korea admitted that she and others had been abducted, but claimed that she had committed suicide on March 13, 1994 (originally announced as 1993 and later corrected to 1994) and returned what it said were her ashes. Japan stated that a DNA test had proved that they could not have been her remains, and her family does not believe that she would have committed suicide. [1]
There is a scene which I find especially poignant. One that shows Megumi clawing repeatedly at the hull of the ship where she was confined leaving bloody streaks. On further investigation on the net, I found an account that it was actually true
During the 85-minute film An, a North Korean defector and acquaintance of Yokota’s kidnapper, explained how the girl screamed for her mother during the 40-hour boat ride and scratched so desperately at an iron door that she lost all her fingernails. [2]
One can only imagine the terror and despair of a 13-year old girl caught in such a situation.
The controversy still rages on the accuracy of the DNA test done on the supposedly remains of Megumi, with political intricacies still abound.
A positive resolution of the issue, I believe, will be the unconditional and indisputable verification on the status of abducted Japanese/Korean nations, and also to bring them home eventually. Frankly even though the odds of that happening is pretty slim. But we can still give our support and hope for the best.
Based on a shoujo manga by Tada Kaoru serialised in Margaret.
