Eden of the East is so awesome!

It's so awesome i have to write about it again.
It's so awesome i can't watch anything else because it's so awesome!
Just like Read or Die, it makes you feel awesome. But it's much more in depth than Read or Die.
This is a really big surprise coming from Production I.G, the king of boring things.
Actually i found the first episode to be bit boring, and laid it off for a while, because it looked kinda like a Production I.G show. I wondered how something that looks so cute can be a Production I.G show. Gone are the expressionless faces.

They feel stuff!

And here is a screenshot from Sky Crawlers, also made by Production I.G:

They look like dolls

Look at their eyes. They look like dolls, and you won't ever see anyone have any other expression than what is shown here. Actually they're meant to look and act like dolls. Thats one of director oshii's signature stuff. Probably because he don't like to feel stuff. Sky Crawlers is based on a novel by the same guy who wrote "The Girl who Leapth Through Time" and "Paprika". Both Paprika and "The girl who leapt though time" are made into great movies with lots of stuff that make you feel awesome. And that's why i watched Sky Crawlers. If The Sky Crawlers were made by Madhouse or something, it would probably have been made into something really great.

It's not Oshii who directed Eden of the East. But other things directed by Kenji Kamiyami looks pretty much Production I.G. to me. He has only directed the Ghost in the Shell tv-series before though. Maybe this is the first time he had the chance to really show what he can do, and take a step away from traditional Production I.G-stuff. And the Ghost in the Shell tv-series are a lot more fun than the movies.


I've been playing Fallout New Vegas lately.
The game locked up again, and i decided to blog about how awesome Eden of the East is.
And i was hoping that the game would unfreeze again, but it didn't. A lot of lagging in Freeside, suddenly it just froze up. The game has been freezing on me quite a lot, but not as bad as Fallout 3 did. It's fun. But i get the feeling that american developers love to release games before they're finished... Of course it's huge, but it's still no excuse for releasing a broken game. And there are still people without internet! I've gotten to some broken quests too. One of them were fixed in the last patch though.

I watch Eden of the East on Blu-Ray

Blu-Ray's very nice.
But DVD's are nice too, and most of the time i can't see that much of a difference. I can see the difference on my laptop, but it's not as easy on my 42" Plasma TV.
Dvd's look super-sharp, and so do blu-rays. Actually Dvd's look as sharp as blu-rays do on my computer, when i watch DVDs on my tv.
I still choose blu-ray over DVD's because i know they're better.
I can't really hear much of a difference with the super awesome truehd surround sound either, even if i have a super awesome homecinema-setup (I use my headphones most of the time though).

Eden of the East is very nice.
Things made by Production I.G is almost always boring. They make the most expensive super awesome tv-series and movies, but they're so boring. In movies like Ghost in the Shell and Sky Crawlers, the characters are just like dolls with just one face expression. They have absolute no feelings, acting all philosophical, quoting famous philosophers and so on. Mostly it's only some people talking about philosophical things in Production I.G shows.

It's a mystery how Production I.G can actually make something that's not boring.
Eden of the East is not boring. It's actually very fun. And it has a really strange episode count of 11 episodes.
It's about a guy waking up in front of the white house, and he's nude and holding a cellphone in one hand, and a gun in his other hand. And he has lost his memory.
I'll just post some picture from the internet, since i can't take screenshots from blu-rays.

He saves some girl from the police who's throwing rocks at the white house. The policeman was alot more interested in the nude guy wandering about. As a thanks she gives him her jacket. But she forgot to take out her passport, so she can tavel back to Japan! And that's how the two main characters meet, and their quest for getting his memory back.

He get contacted by some mysterious woman, telling him he has 8,2 billion yen left on his account, and that he's part of some game, probably set up by the government. The 8.2 billion yen can't be taken out as cash, but has to be used through services through the phone. And he can ask the phone to do absolute ANYTHING. Actually the phone tells him that it was he who ordered to have his memory taken. With the phone he has complete control over the japanese government. He can for example get the prime minister of Japan say something completely random on tv, sneak in a queue, get someone arrested, make a traffic accident and so on.
It's very fun, and it has a lot of mysteries that you just want to know the answer to!

Phone magic!

Of course, it being a Production I.G-show it has to be somewhat philosophical too. But not as hardcore as other production I.G-shows. The big message of Eden of the East, is that we should pity those poor NEETS, people who shut themselves inside because they can't bear the pressure from work and/or school (wich is a big problem in Japan, having almost a million shut-ins).
Is life too much work? Yes, it is. Maybe more so, in Japan.

Eden of the East was very, very fun for me. It's almost as fun as Read or Die, but overall i think this is the better series, maybe. It's super awesome that Production I.G, with their big budgets, made something fun!
I saw it all in one sit.
Now it's so late i have to get in bed. The clock is 00:48 right now. But that's only 23:48 when November begins!

Ace Attorney vs Professor Layton

Wtf are they thinking? =P

Level 5 announces Ace Attorney vs Professor Layton for Nintendo 3DS.
http://ds.ign.com/articles/112/1128842p1.html
It's a really, really strange mix. I don't think it's possible to find any flaws in the professor's logic in court. =P
I'm really looking forward to how this turns out.
It looks really epic in the trailer.

Today i got this...

But i'm so stupid ;_;
I forgot about region locking, and i only got a region A-locked blu-ray player ;_;
Europe getting Ghibli on blu-ray before the US is a bit strange, yes? My other alternative was getting the super-expensive japanese edition.
Time to get a region-free player soon, maybe?
Fortunately i can use my ps3 for playing it, but it's still annoying.

School's so boring.

The autumn holiday is over, and school's starting up again. My blog activity's plumming, so is everything else.

School's so boring ;_;

I have alot of homework too, because i don't want to do school work on holidays. Holidays are for fun, not studying!

I finished watching Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne yesteday.

It's only 6 episodes, so it's possible to watch everything in a weekend.

This is probably the most violent and sexual thing i've ever watched. =P

A lot of lesbian sex, sometimes orgies too. Torture scenes involving piercings all over the body (including the nether regions), surgical operation while being awake and stuff like that.

It's so vulgar.

Altough it is very fun!

Very formularic, but very, very fun action-adventure series.

Almost as good as fun as Read or Die, wich is the king of short fun series.

If it weren't so grim and gritty, it would probably be as fun as Read or Die.

It's a supernatural series about 2 women who are immortal, wich has a detective agency sort of.

One of them is a girl who looks like a twelve year old, and the other is a tall woman with glasses, like Yomiko from Read or Die.

The tall girl is doing the missions, while the short girl's sort of a secretary.

I think it starts sometime between world war I & II, moving to about year 2050 in the end i think.

There is also the greater evil of this series, Apos. I got so mad at him midways in the series. He's so mean ;_;

Why is he so mean, and why do he have to be immortal ;_;

In other news, kanokon vol 2 and 3 has been cancelled.

Media Blasters has decided to just release it as a box-set in March, next year.

And according to animecornerstore, they have stated that it shall be, "priced low enough so not to punish folks who picked up V1". I am punished already. I've paid 14 bucks too much ;_;

Why does it have to be so hard to take pictures from a Blu-Ray disc? ;_;

I have to use HP quickplay, wich is the complete opposite of its name, to play Blu-Ray discs on my computer.

And now HP quickplay won't even work.

Watched Evangelion 1.11 today on Blu-Ray.

It's the first movie in a triology, wich is a reimaged version of the 1995 series, Evangelion.

Evangelion is the most succesful franschise Gainax has made.

Mostly the scenes in the first movie are exactly like those in the tv-series (Often frame by frame even).

They have added a few scenes here and there though.

The first 20 minutes is almost a perfect replica of the first episode of the series =P

The ending is hinting that it's heading for something a bit different from the tv-series though. I'm looking very much forward to that.

The preview for the next movie even show us a completely new character =O

This is our cat, Gråpus.

She's so cute.

Last episodes of Maria watches over us 4th season

I've just finished watching the 4th season of Maria-sama, after finally managing to find the last disc under my couch. I'm so messy ;_;

For those strange people who don't know what Maria-sama is;
Maria watches over us is the most great and fascinating anime series ever... almost.
It's based on a series of novels by Oyuki Konno, wich is not avaliable in English.
It's about some girls at a catholic school in Japan. They have a big statue of Maria there and stuff, where most of the greatest scenes ever take place *-*

It's Maria!

Some people think of Maria-sama as a lesbian series, even wikipedia thinks so, but they're really just the bestest friends ever (also according to the author of the novels).


I'm so bad at this, I can't even make those cool spoiler-thingies i see on other blogs ;_;
I don't want to scare away my readers with spoilers.
I'll just try to post things thats not too spoiling.

Then we have SPOILERS! (But not too spoiling).



In the 4th series it's Yumi's turn to find herself a little sister (Yoshino and the others who were 1st-graders in the first series too).
We also get to know a lot more about Yoko.

Yoko with her hair down! And she's not irritated!

I liked how they fleshed out Yoko alot. Yoko's so adorable.

I can't write too much until i can make those spoiler tags ;_;

The 4th season is as good as the other seasons. But i miss the intro from the older series;

"The maidens, who flock to Mother Maria's garden, pass through the tall gates today yet again with innocent, angelic smiles. Their pure hearts and bodies are clad in deep-colored uniforms. So that the pleats of their skirts are not disturbed and so that their white sailor collars are not set aflutter, it is customary here to walk slowly and with decorum. The Private Lillian Girls' Academy, a garden of maidens."

And they've also changed the theme song.

My sister's in my room playing Oblivion

I loved Fallout 3, but didn't like Oblivion much.

Oblivion just sends you out in an open world with lots to do.

But there's so much to do that i don't really care. I don't know why i want to be a thief or join the assasins. 

I don't really get any awards, you just do what you want in Oblivion it seems. Do some quests, get some meaningless stuff.

Fallout 3 just feels so much more alive to me. Interesting characters, interesting quests with fun stories, and alot more creative locations, but with a really short main-story.

Oblivion is just a world with people without soul to me.

I look forward to Fallout: New Vegas, but i'm a bit afraid that they make it more like a FPS-game this time.

I hate first-person-shooters.

Tokyo Babylon

Decided to watch Tokyo Babylon today.
Bad subtitles and sound glitches plagues this DVD.
The subtitles are either too fast or too slow. Sometimes the subtitles even show up when no one's saying anything!
Like when there is a scene showing a meeting without voices for dramatic effect, the subtitles shows spoken lines!
Often the subtitles just make up its own dialogue. A scene where a boy is saying oka-san, oka-san(mother) over and over, the subtitles say something like, "We played, and i won!".
My first thought was, "dubtitles?". But no, the subtitles and the english dub don't match up at all.

I don't find much about it on the internet, but i think the problem is only with the old first release of Tokyo Babylon, wich i have(bought it on ebay).


As for the show itself...

It was okay. Didn't feel the characters were the same characters as in the Manga. Hokuto-chan's a lot noisier, and Subaru's just different =P
The two stories are original, and were not in the Manga. I think you could see them as additional chapters.
So i think that these 2 episodes may be better as a supplement if you've read or are reading  the Manga than on itself.
There aren't anything in it that spoils the Manga.

Vampire Princess Miyu TV

Warning!  May contain SPOILERS!

I've started on the Vampire Princess Miyu TV-series.

It's surprisingly similiar to the OAV-series. It has the same atmosphere with similiar music and sounds.

The OAV-series was perhaps a bit more down-to-earth, while the tv-series introduces a huge monster wich turned me a bit off at first.

That introduction text also makes it look like a godzilla movie or something =P

And the first episode has a crazy violent ending.

I've seen the first 3 episodes, and it's only the first episode who went that crazy.

The first episode is about a teacher who gets bullied by her students. One after another her bullies die.

The second episode was about a man who seduces women on a train, turning them into his personal mannequin collection.

The third episode was about haunted mask turning a boy crazy.

I think they were pretty good horror stories.

The animation is better than i expected, theyre quite nice for a 90's tv-series. But it's not as good as the 80's OAV-series of course.

Looking forward to watching the rest.

ROD on Blu-Ray!

Aniplex USA is releasing Read or Die on Blu-Ray with a deluxe packaging.
You can get both the OAV and the TV-series in a collection for about $200.
It's really pricey. And i don't know i it's worth it based on these pictures:
http://www.mania.com/aodvb/showpost.php?p=1811840

ROD TV looks pretty much like the DVDs, while the OAV series looks significantly better with much less compression artifacts.
It would be cool if they just released the OAV cheaper, as the TV-series looks great already.
I may be getting this, but i don't know yet.


Edit:
Of course no one actually pays full MSRP price.
I didn't think and was chocked about the high price =P
It'll probably be more like $140 or something at most retailers, wich is more acceptable.
But only barely.

Headache

Yesterday my neck hurt. Tonight it got even worse =O
Woke up 4 in the morning and my head hurt like hell. Took a pill, went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, went to bed again. The pill didn't really work (works like half the time).
I hate headaches! Most people hate headaches i think.
I'm glad it's over now.


From Wikipedia; "During a given year, 90% of people suffer from headaches".
Oh, how i envy you 10% of you who seemingly never have a headache!
And how i pity you women who have headaches 3 times more than men!

Things i thought i wouldn't like

Kakespade made a post about things she didn't think she would like(http://kakesett.blogspot.com/2010/10/things-i-thought-i-would-hate.html) , so i'm copying her post.
In no spesific order:


1. Battle Royale

A movie about teenagers killing each other.
Didn't really sound like my cup of tea, but now it's one of my favorite movies!


2. Spirited Away

I was a Ghibli-skeptic. I saw Princess Mononoke dubbed in english, and didn't really like it much.
Spirited Away made me a Ghibli-lover. I even like Princess Mononoke now =)

3.  Paprika

I was also a Satoshi Kon skeptic.
I had seen Perfect Dark and Millennium Actress, but just thought they were weird.
Then i saw Paprika, wich is a really, really great film.
Now i love anything Satoshi Kon.


4. Macross

When i thought of Macross, i thought of Transformers. It even has airplanes transforming into robots.
But it's really alot more like Gunbuster with really great shoujoish 80's melodrama =)
I want to see Macross Frontier, but i can't make myself download it, even though i know it's rare for anything Macross to get released in english. =( I want it on Blu-Ray now! And i also want the movie "Do you remember Love" =)


5. Pom Poko

Pom Poko doesn't get as much love as many other Ghibli-movies. I really didn't think i would like it, but i like it very much. I think it is a very cute and fun film.

A huge shipment

I made an order at animecornerstore in May. I'm a bit shocked at how long it has been since last time i ordered DVD's =P
 It seems that one of the items was holding up my order, therefore i told them to cancel that item since they had changed the date to TBA. So they didn't ship my order until a few days ago. I had a few preorders in my order, so i knew i had to wait for a little while, but i didn't know it was THAT long since i placed the order.
I also decided it was time to make another order with them since it's been so long.
So now i have 2 shipments on the way that has a combined value of a whopping $578!
And that's a lot for one month for me.
Since i can't watch as much as i did before because of school, my backlog is becoming somewhat big.
Before i didn't have any problems with long series like Utena or Macross, but now i go "gah!" just with a standard 13 episode series. I just don't feel i have the time anymore. So i mostly watch short OAV-stuff and movies right now.
I just have to wait for holidays for for watching series mostly.

Things on its way:

Eden of the East (Blu-Ray)
I've been looking forward to this since i saw the trailer some time ago. Nude guy with a gun and stuff, very nice drawings that look a lot like Honey & Clover.

Toradora Collection 2
Fun high school comedy with great animation.

Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Season 2
First series was fun with fabolous animation. Heard bad things about the second season. The infamous endless eight, where the same episode repeats eight times, so i actually just get 5 new episodes or so.
Probably tried to be creative (the first series put the episodes in random order).


El Hazard: The Wanderer.
I don't know much about this series. I remember it being popular before, but i never checked it out.
Looks like a fantasy-series.

Corpse Princess
Looks fun. Gainax and stuff. Gainax is almost always fun.


Rin: Daughter of Mnemosyne (Blu-Ray)
Heard it was somewhat sexual or violent or something? Don't know much about it, but it looks like it might be a fun short OAV. Looks high budget.


Neon Genesis Evangelion 1.11 (Blu-Ray)
Gainax ripping of its customers by releasing several versions of the same movie.
Haven't seen my DVD wich i think is version 1.01 yet because i knew a new version would come out eventually.

Shigofumi
This one was really impulsive of me. I don't know anything at all, except it has something to do with letters from dead people.


Rumbling Hearts
Will be fun to rewatch. It's a really soapy drama about a love triangle, a girl who falls in a coma for years and stuff, but i liked it when it was new. And it's based on an erotic computer game.

Kodoma no Omocha collection 1&2
Old shoujo comedy that's really popular. Really long. Directed by the same guy who did Fruits Basket, Here and there and stuff.

Gurren Lagann movie 1
They didn't ship the second movie(THE CONTINUATION), wich is the interesting one! Boooh!


Kanokon
Heard its somehat sexual? Maaaaaaaybe fun?


UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie S1&S2
Everyone hates this. Maybe i will like it?


Twin Spica Vol 2 (Manga)
I love Twin Spica!
Maybe it will trick the customs into thinking i'm just buying books?????????


14th. December there will be more Yotsuba! Yay!

Omprabomp!

Welcome to my new blog in english!
I don't really feel all that comfortable with writing in english.
But english is the language of the world! Therefore i must learn to write in english, so that as many as possible will read my blog!

Please be nice with me.
Regards, Myself.


PS: My sister will also start blogging in english. Please visit her blog at http://kakesett.blogspot.com/