Usotsuki Alice To Kujirago Wo Meguru Boken

Tis here!!! I thought it would never arrive... I got up at about 7am this morning to wait for my parcel. It got to 10am, no parcel. 11am, no parcel. Noon, no parcel. I was beginning to get thoroughly annoyed at this stage. After all, it had been in the depot 15 miles away since 5am this morning. How long does it take for God's sake?!

At 5pm, after I'd completely given up on getting the CD today, there was a knock on the door. I'd gotten a party on FFXI at that time too so I had to switch my attention between FFXI and my new CD. I was wondering why the box was so big when they delivered it. I found out the reason why once I opened it. There was a free pencil board with an absolutely divine picture of Horie Yui on it!!! Now that's one hell of a surprise.

The CD "box" that the main CD case and booklet is housed in is super cool. It's a sturdy box, similar in fashion to the Rakuen Limited Edition, but this one is hinged on the left-hand side. There's a heart shape cut out of the front of the box which reveals Horie Yui's face from the CD inlay. The photo booklet is of a high standard and has some nice shots of Yui in and around what looks like a school.

I'm not sure the tracks from this album have quite the instant catchiness of Rakuen, but there are a lot of good songs. I think this album will sound better over time. I've already had it on repeat for 4 hours and I haven't quite picked out which song goes where on the album, but I'm sure it'll sink in soon. I'm so happy today, and will be for a good few weeks! /laugh

Posted byHocchan at 9:12 pm 0 comments  

Time Goes By So Slowly

Almost 24 hours since the last update on the tracking and still no news of it arriving in UK. I'm getting anxious now. It says that the flight date was 23rd November so I don't know if it's been delayed, or that they've simply not had time to update the tracking yet. Hopefully it's the latter, but it's getting close to the weekend now. If I have to wait until the start of the next week to receive my item I'll be very annoyed. Get your skates on!!

Posted byHocchan at 6:20 am 0 comments  

Yatta!!!

Above is the tracking information for... Horie Yui's new album which is currently (as you can see) about to get flown out from Japan. Hopefully it'll arrive in the UK sometime this evening and be delivered for Friday/Saturday. I can't wait! Fly, fly, fly!!!

Posted byHocchan at 3:11 pm 0 comments  

Azumi

Well, the stupid holiday known as Halloween has come and gone. As has the better holiday that is Bonfire Night. You do get a hell of a lot of morons buying fireworks though. Still, I like fireworks better than stupid trick-or-treaters.

Been watching a lot of stuff this last month. I've finished watching 'Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid' and I'm pleased to say it had a good finale. I'm not sure it's better than the first series but it's definitely as good as the original. I've always loved the hi-resolution type finish that FMP has. You really notice the difference when you switch to another anime.

I also finished watching 'Mahou Sensei Negima' after all this time. I feel they kind of rushed the ending a bit but it worked OK for the most part. I may have lost a little affinity with 'Mahou Sensei Negima' over the time it's taken me to watch it all. Must be because of the delay between each episode. I still like the series though, it was a fun anime to watch.

After those 2 anime I was once again in search for another series to enjoy. I somehow managed to come across a fairly new anime by the name of 'Mahoraba ~Heartful Days~' while searching for Horie Yui on Google. This was one hell of a good anime! It was a bit odd when I first started watching. I thought they were all 12 years old or something due to the style of drawing, but they all turned out to be much older. I loved the story of this anime. There are so many funny moments which reminded me of 'Love Hina'. Horie Yui does a sublime job of playing Tamami. Although the character's not a very likeable, she does a very good job of making a believeable personality. The rest of the cast have very distinctive voices too and I've found myself falling for Kozue's cute voice. So glad I found this and had the chance to watch it.

On the film front I've also been viewing a lot more than I would normally. First was 'Azumi', the film from which this post is named after. I discovered this in HMV as it happens. Saw it in the anime/martial arts section and thought it looked pretty good. Bought it off Play.com for £7.99 - absolute bargain. At 2 hours long this is an epic story from start to finish. What's nice is that Ueto Aya, the heroine of the film, did almost all of the fight scenes herself. Good film and worthy of watching.

GREAT NEWS!!!! Horie Yui's 5th album will be released in one week's time on the 23rd November. There are a few samples of the tracks on her official website and from what I've heard, this will be a good album. I've already ordered the limited edition version from CDJapan and it should arrive a few days after it's released. I can't wait!!!

Posted byHocchan at 10:31 pm 0 comments