Mikan
31 October 2007
WoOoOoOoOoh! It's a scary ghost... GIVE ME A BREAK! That's right, the most loathsome event of the year is here once again. I really cannot stand Halloween. It wouldn't be so bad if it was firmly rooted in its pagan origins, but it's nothing like that now. It's become so overly commercialised (mainly due to the Americanisation of it) that it just stinks of tackiness. Every year it gets worse. Pumpkins, scary masks, fake blood and, God forbid, Trick or Treaters... It's all very tiresome. I know some people like it (I have no idea why) but it's really not for me. I rather prefer the fireworks in November. They're a lot more enjoyable than Halloween. I just can't wait until today is over. Then I'll be another 364 days until the next one /laugh. Still, kind of hard to believe it's November tomorrow. Didn't seem so long ago that the year had started with several Hello Project upsets. I remember thinking, it's so long until the end of the year, I wonder if we can get through it without too many incidents. Unfortunately, it hasn't happened. A few days ago it was announced that Gotou Maki (the third generation member who really boosted Morning Musume into the hearts of Japan) would be leaving Hello Project completely. It's another blow to the fans. Maki was a very likeable person and possibly one of the most famous members of the group. After she left Morning Musume she hasn't quite had the solo career she deserved though. I hope this new start will signal a new, more successful era for her.
I recently had a chance listen to the new Morning Musume single due to be released soon. It's called 'Mikan' and I quite like it. Once again the tempo is fairly high and it's got an anime theme song feel about it. I'll admit I wasn't that keen on it at first (unlike the previous single) but it's growing on me the more I listen to it. It remains to be seen whether it'll be as successful as the previous singles but I'm hopeful it'll do well in the charts.
Posted byHocchan at 3:32 pm 0 comments
Arienee Ttsuuno!
27 October 2007
Before we begin, the title may look a bit odd but I didn't just mash the keys and hope for the best. It is Japanese for 'that's unbelievable/impossible!' or something along those lines. It's a line from 'Hana Yori Dango' which the main character says a lot when she's shocked or angry. It's kind of addictive to say so I've picked it up and started to use it. Arienee ttsuuno! Speaking of 'Hana Yori Dango', I finished watching the first season and I'm now a few episodes into the second. I'm not too keen on the new season so far. It lacks some of that magic from the first one. I was surprised to see a cameo appearance by Ikuta Toma (from 'Hanazakari') in the 2-hour first episode. He didn't play such a nice guy though this time. The make up artists also made him look quite odd, almost kind of creepy. Maybe that's what they were aiming for since his character was like that but I think they over did it. The plot of this season continues straight on from the end of the first and introduces another, rather annoying character to get in the way of Tsukasa and Tsukushi. Tsukasa's mother remains, as ever, an interfering old cow. The whole thing doesn't seem to fit, I don't know why. I think the problem is that it's all been done before in the first season. Maybe it'll get better as it goes on. We shall see how it pans out.
I had a massive levelling session on Final Fantasy XI yesterday. Pretty much played the whole day. I got three different merit parties and clocked up a grand total of over 100,000 limit points. I'm very nearly done capping my Store TP trait on Samurai. Once that's done I think I'll get a few other bits and pieces done before continuing down the STR merit route. It does seem a lot easier to get parties now compared to a few months ago. I even had one party which got up to chain #113 shortly before I had to AFK for a couple of minutes. I could never have dreamed of getting such a good party not long ago but it seems more common now. The new expansion pack is out soon and I'm looking forward to playing the new Dancer job. I've already pre-ordered it from Play.com so all I got to do it wait until 22nd November for it to get released. Can't wait!
Posted byHocchan at 5:01 pm 0 comments
Full Throttle
24 October 2007
Sigh... I've been feeling rather despondent lately. I'm having trouble getting a good night's rest. It's not unusual for me to wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. The fatigue isn't helping my concentration levels either and I find myself constantly forgetting things. I haven't been very helpful to my friend Siraji on FFXI lately due to this and I feel pretty bad about it. I keep apologising and hoping for a chance to make amends but I just end up messing up even more. If only I could just get my act together. Both in the game and in real life. My life has no meaning right now. I'm just aimlessly drifting through it without any real purpose. Even now I haven't got a clue what I want to do as a career. If only I could be one of those people who are so set on their dreams and know exactly what to do to achieve them. Perhaps I'm just too lazy or scared, or both. I've probably written something similar to this in an earlier post but that's no surprise. It's just one of those things that seems to come around every year. I wonder when I can finally put this to rest? I need to stop dithering and sort my life out!
Enough depressing talk. Something that's more preferable to talk about is the return of 'Taihou Shichauzo'. This is an anime that is one of my all time favourite series. It's been years since the second season and film were released so I was shocked to learn that a new series had started earlier this month. I was especially pleased to learn that the original voice actors had returned to voice the characters, in particular Hiramatsu Akiko who plays Kobayakawa Miyuki. She's probably my second favourite voice actress behind Horie Yui. The anime retains that mix of humour, romance and action that made the previous seasons so successful. It's been a long time since I've watched any anime so this is a nice way to return to it. Excellent stuff.
Posted byHocchan at 7:07 pm 1 comments
Namida No Furusato
20 October 2007
Is it just me or has it got really cold in the evenings lately? Feels like autumn has crept up without warning this year. It's already mid-October and soon it'll be the season of pumpkins and fireworks. Usually I look forward to the winter months but this year I wish it wouldn't arrive so quickly. I wish I could have enjoyed the sunshine a bit more. Oh well, since it's so cold outside what better way to warm up than sitting in bed watching lots of great Japanese dramas? I've just started 'Hana Yori Dango', a series I'll always remember for being parodied by Hard Gay (really funny Japanese comedian from a few years ago). I've never quite had the urge to watch it though, don't know why. When I finally watched the first episode though it instantly changed my mind about the series. It's another school drama (I seem to like those a lot /laugh) about a highly prestigious school that's controlled by the 'Flower Four', F4 for short. These are four sons of extremely rich parents who pretty much have the run of the place. If you get on the wrong side of the F4 you are served with a red notice and are instantly bullied by the rest of the school.
Makino Tsukushi hopes to get through her days at the school without incident but that wish is shattered when she goes against the F4 whilst trying to protect a transfer student. She is served a notice and starts to get harassed by every pupil in the school. At first she takes the punishment but finally snaps and punches the leader of the F4 in the dining hall. From then on it's a war against the group and the story of how she slowly changes them. It's a really fun series to watch. Perhaps not as much as 'Hanazakari No Kimitachi E' but it's still quite light hearted. There are quite a few famous young actors in the cast such as Oguri Shun and Matsumoto Jun. It's the first time I've seen Inoue Mao, who plays Tsukushi, in a drama but she does a good job. It's going to be a fun few days while I watch the rest of it.
Posted byHocchan at 5:58 pm 0 comments
Maido Ari
13 October 2007
Despite the determination of Royal Mail workers trying to ruin everyone's lives, I received my Seagate 250GB external hard drive yesterday. It was delivered only one day after it was dispatched from Amazon. Suck on that, you lazy, striking dipsticks! You should be thankful that I'm not the CEO of Royal Mail. You'd be out on your arse, begging on the street faster than you can say 'P45'! Ahem... rant over. It came in a massive box with some futuristic packing material I'd never seen before. There wasn't much in the box, just the drive, a USB cable, a power adapter and a quick set up guide. The hard drive looks pretty cool. It stands vertically like a PS2 and has a nice amber strip that lights up. It's very nice looking. The set up was as simple as you could possible hope for; just plug it in and you're off. Thankfully, it came pre-formatted to NTFS so I didn't have to wait around. I've transferred all my Japanese drama to the new drive and it has eased the strain on my laptop hard drive. It had a whopping 19.73% fragmentation before I moved all the files. Now it's down to less than 1% which is a relief. Now I can download to my heart's content and not have to worry about how much space I have left (for a while anyway). I'll also have a massive store of all my favourite drama series to watch whenever I want. Superb!
Speaking of dramas, I've finished watching 'Kurosagi'. While it was a pretty enjoyable series I wasn't that convinced about the ending. It wasn't that it felt rushed or anything, rather it didn't seem to know what it wanted to do. That's sort of what happened with most of the main story too. They didn't develop the relationship between Tsurara and Kurosaki as much as I would have hoped. Probably thanks in part to Tsurara's 'friend' who suddenly became a stuck up bitch for no reason. From about episode five onwards she began to act like a selfish spoilt brat. It got seriously annoying after awhile. I'm hoping the upcoming 'Kurosagi' film will give a better conclusion to the story. If it doesn't it would be a real shame.
Posted byHocchan at 7:24 pm 3 comments
Daite Senorita
10 October 2007
Started to watch 'Kurosagi' last night after I downloaded the first few episodes. It's about a guy named Kurosaki (played by Yamashita Tomohisa) who is a 'Kurosagi' or a 'Black Swindler'. He goes around hunting other swindlers and brings them down. The reason he does this is because his father was deceived by a swindler six years ago. As a result his father murdered the whole family before committing suicide. Kurosaki survived the incident though and vowed to destroy all swindlers. He does this by buying information off a man called Katsuragi Toshio who himself is a master swindler. Even though Kurosaki is aware of Toshio's involvement in his father's deception he continues to get information off him. In the first episode Kurosaki comes across Yoshikawa Tsurara (played by Horikita Maki), a university student who's studying to become a public prosecutor. Because of her career aspirations she is resolutely against Kurosaki's actions. However, once she begins to learn the details of the incident six years ago she slowly develops an understanding of him. It will be interesting to see how their relationship develops in the future episodes.
This drama is a nice change of pace from the previous ones. It's more of a boys drama in effect. It's all about being a cool, sophisticated con-artist who rids the world of evil tricksters. There is the possible romantic side story between Kurosaki and Tsurara but that hasn't fully developed yet. I do like the disguises that Kurosaki adopts in each episode. Some of the outfits I wouldn't mind having as part of my wardrobe /laugh. The theme song to the series is also unbelievably funky. Sung by Yamashita Tomohisa himself it's goes very nicely with the overall feel of the drama. It reminds me very much of late 80s Hong Kong pop music. I like it a lot. So much so I've made it the title of the post!
Posted byHocchan at 9:13 pm 0 comments
Nobuta Power Chuunyuu!
09 October 2007
I finished watching 'Nobuta Wo Produce' last night. It was quite a bittersweet ending. On the one hand it was nice to finally see Nobuko have the confidence and ability to interact and make friends with people in the school. I was expecting a drastic change to her character throughout the series but in truth very little changed. She's still the same Nobuko we grew to know and love, except now she hasn't closed herself off to the world anymore. It was really great seeing her finally beginning to enjoy her life. On the other hand, however, she no longer has her two first and greatest friends by her side. They really had some great times together, despite the hardships they faced. It's a bit of shame that they won't be together any longer. However, the fact that Nobuko herself suggested Akira go join Shuji just shows how much strength she has now. And that's probably the best result you could get. I really grew to love Nobuko (and not just because Horikita Maki plays her). She's one of my favourite characters from any drama I've watched.
I don't know why I didn't notice how good this drama was for so long. It can be very difficult to watch at times because of the subject matter, but it eases off towards the end. It does have one of those really infuriating characters in it though. The sort of person you wish you could slap seven shades of crap out of them every time you see their face. The type of person you wouldn't help if you saw them being mauled by a pack of wolves in the street. Thankfully, they don't ruin the series much. And it was a great pleasure seeing their plan fail. I would say the only thing wrong with this drama is its length. At only ten episodes long it feels way too short. I don't think there's much scope for a special any time soon. Still, it was highly enjoyable to watch this drama. I'm already downloading my next series - Kurosagi. Even more Horikita Maki goodness. Yatta!
Posted byHocchan at 6:34 am 0 comments
Tokaikko Junjou
07 October 2007
I started watching 'Nobuta Wo Produce' last night. It wasn't what I was expecting. From the description given on the DramaWiki site I thought it would be a light-hearted affair similar to 'Hanazakari No Kimi-tachi E'. While it does still have its comic elements it's very much a serious drama. It centres around an extremely shy and introverted girl called Kotani Nobuko who transfers to a new school. She is immediately picked on and bullied by a group of troublemaking girls due to her appearance and inability to stand up for herself. They play cruel tricks on her such as vandalising her school blazer and pouring water over her in the girls toilets. Her pain doesn't go unnoticed, however, Kiritani Shuji, an extremely popular guy, and Kusano Akira, a strange individual who considers Shuji a friend (the feeling isn't mutual though), feel sympathy for her. They decide to help her out by changing her image in order to make her more popular within the school. They become her 'producers' and set about trying to make Nobuko's life easier.
The cast is very good, with very few people looking like they're overacting. Yamashita Tomohisa (who played the lead in 'Proposal Daisakusen') comes across as very odd at first. His character looks like he's constantly drunk. You do see another more composed side to him at times though. I'm quite astounded by how well Horikita Maki plays the shy Nobuko. It's a massive change to her previous characters. In actual fact she won an award for the best supporting actress in the 47th Television Drama Academy Awards. I'm quite eager to see her transformation into a more confident and outgoing individual as the series progresses. You can already see some change from just the first few episodes. It will be interesting to watch.
As I said earlier, this drama is a lot more serious than I first thought. The bullying scenes can be quite hard to watch. You know it's all faked but I'm sure there have been similar cruel acts carried out in schools across the world. Whilst I was never seriously bullied in school, I do know how horrible and lonely it can feel. There are also some very thought provoking moments in the episodes that question what's really important in life. There seems to be a very dark side to this drama in places. An interesting point is that Shuji appears to be narrating the story from a time in the future. So all the current episodes have been in the past. He seems to speak of some troubling times ahead. I'm wondering what they could be and why they are so serious. Only time will tell. I'm eagerly awaiting the rest of the series.
Posted byHocchan at 10:08 pm 0 comments
Reset
06 October 2007
Okami on the PlayStation 2 will surely go down in history as one of the major classics on the machine. Up there with the likes of Panzer Dragoon and Shining Force for the Sega Saturn, Shenmue for the Dreamcast, and Super Mario World for the SNES. It's a brilliantly conceived game that enthrals all who play it. Taking control of the legendary wolf, Amaterasu, you must rescue ancient Japan from the clutches of an evil power threatening to destroy the world. It's packed full of references to Japanese folklore and will have you in awe at the style of its presentation. The beautiful watercolour graphics are a sight to behold. There isn't a single thing in this game that doesn't look stunning. Then you have its unique Celestial Brush game play. Using your analogue sticks you must draw various patterns on the screen in order to solve puzzles and fight enemies. It's a touch of genius. Add to all this its excellent soundtrack, full of soothing oriental instruments and arrangements, and you have one of the most magnificent games ever released. It's just such a shame that so few people experienced its splendour. Sales of Okami were well below what the game deserved. Even more tragic is that the studio that developed the game, Clover Studios (a subsidiary of Capcom), was closed shortly after the game's release. That this game didn't achieve worldwide recognition is blasphemy. So do yourself a favour, buy a copy of Okami and prepare to have your mind well and truly blown. The gods will thank you for it.
Posted byHocchan at 9:40 pm 0 comments
Deru Toko Demasho!
05 October 2007
Time for a new look to my Windows XP desktop. I changed the wallpaper, the XP theme and Firefox's theme. Since we're coming up to the winter months I thought a moody black and orange would suit the season very well. Well, the actual reason for the change came about because I've been having some problems with the XP theme after I dismantled my laptop. It would regularly develop a fault and revert back to the absolutely horrid looking Windows Classic theme for no apparent reason. I haven't been able to find the source of the problem. I've scanned for viruses, spyware, adware, defragmented my hard disk and cleaned up my registry but it's still doing it. It does appear to be doing it less now though. Perhaps it'll fix itself in time. Won't stop me from enjoying my new look. Horikita Maki has taken over from Horie Yui as desktop wallpaper for the time being. I think this particular picture of her suits the theme very well. But I'm sure it won't be long before Yui comes back!
Thankfully, D-Addicts came back on-line last night and I was able to download 'Deru Toko Demasho!'. It's about a girl called Kamei Shizuka (Horikita Maki) whose father has run away, leaving the family with 6.3 billion Yen worth of debt. The debt collectors start harassing the family for their money and as a result Shizuka has to drop out of school. Fortunately, a lawyer by the name of Nonaka Hiromu comes to the family's aid. He completes bankruptcy proceedings for Shizuka's father and clears the family's debt completely. Unfortunately this still leaves the family short of money so Shizuka ends up trying to get a part time job. After many failed jobs she begs Nonaka for a job in his office. He accepts, on one condition: she must always wear a school uniform (in particular a blazer uniform) everyday. Turns out the lawyer is a... connoisseur of school uniforms /laugh. What follows are several cases which Shizuka convinces Nonaka to take up, despite him only liking cases that bring in lots of money.
Overall this was a nice one-off drama. Maki was exceptional in this role, and the school uniforms suited her very well /laugh. It was nice to see Tanihara Shosuke play the perverted lawyer. He pulls it off superbly. I particularly liked his "HATARAKI!" line he shouted at Maki. Brilliant stuff.
Posted byHocchan at 8:06 pm 0 comments
Why?!
This really hasn't been my week. From almost breaking my laptop to not being able to get a party on Final Fantasy XI, everything seems to be trying to make my life as difficult as possible. Now my CD rewriter drive has well and truly died. It's had a tough old life. Sometimes it wouldn't be recognised by the computer even though there was clearly power going to it. Other times it would screw up my blank CDs for no apparent reason. Today it decided to commit suicide. I had planned on transferring some episodes of 'Hanazakari No Kimi-tachi E' onto CDs today so I went out and bought a stack of 25 blank discs. I inserted the first one into the drive and tried to write the data to disc. A message came up saying that there was no disc in the drive. Oh dear. I tried to eject the disc but for some reason it wouldn't come out. Pressed the button a few more times and got the same result - a lot of whirring noises and then silence. I unscrewed the drive and removed it from the laptop. Opened it up and found the cause of the problem. There was some stupid piece of metal right in the way of where the disc normally goes in or out. It looked like it was meant to be there, but for some reason I'd never noticed it before. It definitely should not be stopping me inserting/ejecting CDs though. I tried several times to push it down but the bastard thing was spring-loaded. Frustrated I tried the brute force method and ended up tearing one of the data cables. Bugger it all to hell! Now I've got no CD drive and several gigabytes worth of data taking up hard disk space.
To solve my dilemma I've decided to purchase an external hard disk drive. I chose a Seagate Free Agent 250GB USB drive from Amazon for £43.99 including delivery. That should be ample space for a long time. The only problem is that Royal Mail have just decided to go on strike for the next few days... ARSE-MONKEY-MUNCHERS! Stop f-ing striking and sort the bloody mail! What the crap do you think we pay our postage charges for?! For you to sod around, eating caviar and doing sod-all work?! For whores sake! Get your act together. The end result of all this naffness is that I won't get my drive until mid-October. I just hope my paltry 5GB remaining space will suffice until then. Stupid Monkey-nut-sucker Royal Mail workers!
Posted byHocchan at 1:41 am 2 comments
Get Down On It
03 October 2007
Bah... Bah! I wanted to watch 'Deru Toko Demasho!" tonight but the D-Addicts website is down. That means no forum, no torrents and no tracker. The only thing that still works is the DramaWiki but that's not really any help. Goddamn it. I hope it's back up soon. I really want to watch this new drama. I saw the first 5 mins on Veoh and it looks really interesting. The audio and video quality wasn't very good though, and it kept pausing every now and again to load so I gave up. I'll have nothing to watch tonight /cry. Guess I could play Final Fantasy XI. The only problem with that is there haven't been many people on lately. The main reason for this is none other than the Master Chief. A lot of people have disappeared to play Halo 3 all day, causing the population of the server to drop by almost 40%. Bloody thing. I'm hoping people will get bored of it soon and come back. It's not that I'm against Halo, I enjoyed the first game (not so much the second), but it's frustrating to not be able to level because the Americans are too busy blasting chunks out of each other. As usual, the USA state of affairs interferes with everything else on this planet. It's such a damn pain!
Posted byHocchan at 9:58 pm 0 comments
IKEMEN Boogie
Just finished watching the 2-hour final episode of 'Hanazakari No Kimi-tachi E'. Wow, is all I can say. It surely went out with a bang! I don't think there's been an ending with such impact for a long time. This drama has always been very humorous and slapstick in places, but the final episode really turned on the waterworks. It really did bring a tear or two to the eye seeing the final scenes. The ending was pretty satisfactory, though as always, it left scope for another season or at the very least, a special. I think I liked this series even more than 'Proposal Daisakusen'. At first the huge cast was rather overwhelming, but slowly you begin to recognise each of the characters and their personalities. I don't think I could ever get tired of the antics the members of each dormitory get up to in each episode. The main cast was exceptional in their performance, especially Horikita Maki, who I've become a big fan of. Her prettiness coupled with her brilliant comic timing makes it a joy to watch her act. When I found out she was in a new one-off drama called 'Deru Toko Demasho', I knew I definitely had to watch it. I'm also going to hunt down the other episodes of 'Teppan Shoujo Akane' and maybe even download 'Kurosagi' and 'Nobuta Wo Produce'. Ah, I've got a lot of watching to do over the next couple of months! /joy
Posted byHocchan at 4:01 am 0 comments
Save Me
02 October 2007
I've had a rather disastrous 24 hours. It all started at 2:00 AM on Monday morning. After logging out of Final Fantasy XI for the night, I decided to watch some Bleach on Veoh before bed. For some reason though, whenever I tried to play the video, there would be no audio. Odd, I thought, perhaps it's something wrong with the website? I took a look at my installed hardware and the sound card appeared to be working correctly. However, when I went to the sound set up menu it refused to recognise it was even there. Stupid thing, I thought, there must be a loose connection somewhere, I'll open the laptop up and take a look... bad idea. This laptop case is the most retarded thing I've ever seen. Firstly, in order to get to five of the screws you have to dismantle the monitor. Once that's done, you've got to unscrew a billion other screws to get into the case. Even then, there are three very crucial screws that for some ungodly reason, are attached to the case and cannot be reached. I got so frustrated I just forced the bloody case until it broke away. The damage wasn't too major, nothing you'd notice without taking a really close look. Anyway, with the case off I could take a look at the motherboard and installed components. There was five years worth of dust inside the machine so I had to get rid of that first. Actually it looked more like soot, very odd. After cleaning it up I had a quick look around and couldn't see any loose connections or anything. I didn't want to unscrew the motherboard in case I broke it so I gave up and put everything back together. Put the final screws back in and tried to start it up. But, damn, the monitor doesn't work now. I dismantle it and recheck the wiring about 5-6 times but no luck. It was 7:00 AM by this point so I decided to give up and go to bed. I was sure I'd need to buy a new computer at this point.
Woke up in the afternoon and tried again to fix my laptop. It was all or nothing this time. I took the monitor off, detached the main case and set about removing the motherboard. Did I mention this case was retarded in its design? Well, I'm going to mention it again. The heat sink was trapped by a bit of plastic with no discernible way to get it out. Sod that, I've not got time to waste. I took out a pair of pliers and ripped the obstructing piece of plastic away, thus freeing the motherboard. Another ton of soot/dust on the underside which I had to clean up. Then I noticed a connector that I'd not disconnected when removing the motherboard. Could this be the elusive wire that makes the monitor work? Took me awhile to re-attach all the wiring and fit everything back into the case. Put the monitor back on, plugged in the power supply, and prayed. Pushed the power button and... WE HAVE VISION!! It works! Hallelujah! I was so relieved. Overjoyed, I logged in and was expecting everything to be all right again. Except it wasn't... damn. There was still no sound. I checked the Internet for solutions and found something about running services.msc. I did that and found the bit that handled all the audio on the computer: Windows Audio. Guess what? Damn thing was turned off!! I didn't do that, who the crap turned it off?! I restarted it and started and episode of Hanazakari No Kimi-tachi E to test it. You can't imagine the pure ecstasy I felt when the sound of the title sequence flowed out from the speakers. It was pure heaven. The sense of relief was immense. I never, ever want to go through that turmoil again. I wasted all that time trying to fix a hardware problem when it was a simple case of a software setting... GODDAMN YOU!!!
Posted byHocchan at 5:04 pm 0 comments
