Chewy Anime

You probably know that listening to music can affect one’s mood. Fast paced tracks gets one worked up, soothing tracks calm one down, and so on. Lots of research has been done on it, and although there have been contrary reports, those are usually due to the person associating the song or tune with something else. For example, if a boy associates a rock song with a dog he had when he was a child that comforted him when he was sad, hearing the song would evoke feelings of nostalgic calm as opposed to heightened energy.

I, personally, have been noticing that music tends to mess around with my thinking. I have a fondness for dramatic piano tracks, which evoke feelings of melancholy or sadness or a slow, wistful, reflective feel. This has led to my thinking going from calm to dramatic to fast paced and full of energy. Makes for an interesting experience, true, but it interferes with things like say, blogging. For example, my mind is alert since I’m listening to a fast paced song right now. (It’s a vocal song from the 11eyes soundtrack, for those of you who are wondering)

Have you, the reader, experienced something similar before?

You have to love the the local Today newspaper.

Scanned and uploaded the image.

——

Osamu Tezuka must be turning in his grave right now.

(To give the local news some credit, Channel News Asia has an article on the same topic, which makes sense.)

Apologies for the long period of silence. I’ve been recovering from a nasty bout of paranoia when I believed I was being watched by a spectral being, and that people were trying to read my mind. Sounds silly, yes, but it’s true. Either way, I’m feeling better now.

A few thing:

There is no cake

My birthday occurred 6 days back, on the 8th of May, marking another year of moving towards the egars of fate. No celebration, no cake, by my request. Nothing eventful. Moving on…

No Rune Factory either

I have decided to forgo a Nintendo DS for the time being in favor of saving up for a house in the future. A somewhat distant future; though when I get there I would probably be wondering where my time had went.

Anime

So far, I’ve only been following Kurenai. Allison and Lillia is good, too, but my laziness got ahold of me. Code Geass R2 is inaccessible, as Veoh is filled with spam episodes. Macross and fanservice and whatnot don’t get my attention either.

The red night

Yes, I procured a copy of 11eyes from the usual sources. *Cough*.

The plot is captivating, alternating between suspense and horror, and light-hearted humor as the characters go back and forth between the mysterious events they call the Red Night (Akai Yoru; My Japanese input doesn’t seem to be working at the moment so romaji would have to do). This has been taking up most of my time; at least, it was until the paranoia struck. Right now I seem to be stuck in a spell of reluctancy.

Finally, here’s an image to interest you in 11eyes.

The life we see in stories, television, and of course anime (This IS an anime blog after all) is often shown as exciting and eventful. It’s what makes up a story- events.

Lots of people lament on how dull their lives are, but I would think that overall, everyone gets a good amount of drama or whatnot- Except, it’s only interesting/funny when it’s not happening to you.

But another thing about forms of storytelling is that it makes use of timeskips. Trivial events like waking up that are of no relevance to the plot are skipped, for example. Real life, on the other hand, does not have such liberties.

Basically, real life is a book/television show/anime, except unedited. And lots of filler, only different from what most people associate ‘filler’ with, which in the anime community refers to mindless shonen anime fights that last for 5 episodes. Each.

Let me give an example:

Story-like plot:

Troy woke up.

Real life:

Troy got out from bed, with his eyes seemingly glued together. He rubbed them, then shuffled from under the sheets. He didn’t want to get up- who cared about what plans he had, anyway? Sleep was good.

His conscience nagged at him repeatedly, as though he was forgetting something. He probably was, but he didn’t care. He was having a nice dream, but it seemed to slip his mind, now that he thought about it.

He scratched the itch on his leg and turned in his bed, shifting his head on his pillow so he would be in a more comfortable position. He didn’t want to face the day- he would do whatever it took to go to sleep. Sleep was good.

Rinse and repeat 5 times before waking. Everyone has experienced the waking up blues, so you’ll know what I’m referring to.

See what I mean? That is real life. Fortunately, we are cursed with astonishingly bad memory, such that trivial things are soon forgotten so our existence doesn’t become dull and menial. Even then, most people find it dull. In fact, the people who don’t are almost always either suffering from too much excitement and drama in their lives (The death of a loved one, a veteran in a war, etc) or have learnt to be content with life’s simple pleasures.

Which brings me to the next point- How a person views life is decided by no one but themselves. A shopping trip at a newly opened mall might be exciting for some and excruciating for others. Scrubbing away barnacles from the bottom of a gondola may be fun for some, but trivial for others.

This post is actually meant to lead up to a shameless promotion to get readers to watch the Aria series

Once again, life is as interesting as one sees it as. A child lives in a world where everything is new and flashy, and finds it interesting. They get bored of these as they grow older, and turn to things like games or books or television, in the harmless cases, or drugs and sex and crime in the harmful ones. Then comes jobs, and life seems to become more dull- Marriage and family come into play. They slowly grow old and watch as those ‘young ones’ go around filled with energy, jealous of their innocence and simple joy.

The ironic thing is that they were the ones who made the choice to live life dull- or rather, to see life in a dull manner.

So, what was the point of this post? Nothing much really, just trying to convince myself that my anime-plot-related fantasies can come true a simple reflection on life and something to think about. Also, go watch Aria for more information on how to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

So, to end this, I would like to leave you with a question: How do you perceive your life to be?

You’re probably bored of having Key mentioned in every other posts (i.e. half the time) but I thought I’ll drop this for those interested: Little Busters! Ecstasy is going on sale on the 25th of July. (From the Key website) From the 25th onwards, customers can place a reservation for their copies.

On the bright side, I can use a relevant image.

Another image since I have lots.

Characters with power(s), the staple main character of a good number of anime. Or, for that matter, most media. But the spectrum of characters is wide. So, how would one classify them?

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I haven’t posted for a week, even though I was on the verge of posting more often; the explanation is that I went and looked for some Xbox 360 games to kill the time, and ended up buying Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. As with most RPG’s, I spend hours and hours on it each day. It doesn’t help that the game itself has a main questline and four side-questlines equally as captivating and long. I got it over a week back, and so far have clocked in (According to the save game time) over a hundred hours.

But enough of that. Anyway, I finally decided to take a look at a few frequented blogs, and found a few things I missed; the most important (To me, at least) is that a new Key game is in the works. It was announced on April Fool’s day, but they confirmed it the next day.

Apparently, they’re getting Ryukishi07 to work on some of the scenarios. For those who aren’t aware, he was the one who created the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni visual novel series, later adapted into an anime and manga. This is apparently a good thing.

Next thing on the list: The 11eyes demo is out. I tried to download it two days ago, at 4 am in the morning so there wouldn’t be server lag on my side and hopefully not on the other side. With a download accelerator, I hit… A very, very slow pace. The connection eventually timed out after 2 and a half hours. Yippee.

Thus, I’m waiting for the game to come out in a few weeks’ time.

And finally, on the anime side… I’m too lazy to watch anime, which is saying a lot since anime doesn’t involve anything other than staring at a screen. I do, however, plan to watch Kurenai. Sometime. And catch up on my long-forgotten Aria the Origination. On the other hand, perhaps I might consider giving Code Geass R2 a miss, or at least a delay so I can watch it all at once.

…Or, in other words, I found out about the existence of Rune Factory the other day.

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With the second season ended, it’s time to look back at the happenings. In particular, the breaching of the whatever-the-blue-thing-was in Episode 23. Now, fans of FPS games would be lamenting at the fact that the Flame Hazes used such an ineffective method, resulting in a casualty. Let’s look at how they could improve it.

(And yes, this is my weak attempt at humor. Thought I’d add it in.)

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Source: Moon Phase

(Note: This is my first time translating. I think I have the general gist down, but feel free to correct me.)

Little Busters! Ecstasy

(Translated) The new heroine, a mysterious girl who wears two different faces for the day and the night, Tokido Saya. Character design by Na-Ga, Scenario by Maeda Jun. Her outward appearance is attractive, making her popular in the class. But her other face is that of a mysterious girl who wanders in the school building by night, and aims for the school’s hidden ‘treasure’. Fighting those who protect the treasure, the Executive (club) of darkness (Yami no Shikoubu) to the end, one must wonder what her goal is. Surprisingly enough, she appears to be an airhead.

Thoughts:

That seems… A lot like Mai from Kanon, wandering around the school at night and all. I expect this would be interesting. Still, I’m looking forward to it, especially since the scenario is by Maeda Jun. I don’t expect it to be on the level of Refrain (In fact, that would lessen the impact of Refrain if they were on the same level), but it’s still worth a try. Also, if anything, the laughs would be worth it.

Aria the Origination

(Translated) On the foundation (?) built by the collaboration by the staff who worked on the Aria anime, a second game for the PS2 has been confirmed for release. The main lead is an original character, Anies Diuma, whose goal is to be an undine. The story depicts her journey.

Thoughts:

An Aria game for the Ps2… Wait, there was a first? Where?*Looks around*

Now, if only I had a PS2.