Kurogane's Anime Blog » Otaku

Lilium Music Box Project

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 11:51:29 +0000

An interesting email came to me via reader rynstone, who informed me that there’s a dedicated group of Elfen Lied fans who are trying to a Lilium music box, a very important memento of Lucy in the Elfen Lied series.

The group has managed to persuade Sankyo, a Japanese company, to make the music box mechanism but it requires a one-time project fee of USD 670 + about USD 7 per mechanism to produce and they are looking for fellow fans or kind donators to contribute to the fee.

Personally, I think this isn’t a bad undertaking and it does result in very interesting piece of merchandise. Fellow Elfen Lied fans can visit their website/forums at http://stromnova.webs.com/ to register and find out how to donate.

Interested fans can also directly email Mr. Jarrod Pierce at liliumbox@gmail.com to get more clarification on the project.

Cowboy Bebop movie too expensive for execs’

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:16:54 +0000

Actor Keanu Reeves (The Matrix, Animatrix, Johnny Mnemonic) told MTV News that the proposed live-action Cowboy Bebop film project is currently being rewritten. During a press event for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee film, he said, “There’s a draft of the script, but the writer did such a great job [that] in order to make the movie, you would need half a billion dollars. […] So the studio went, ‘This movie is fantastic and it would cost half a billion dollars. So he’s doing a rewrite.” Reeves added that the producers are “just trying to pull it back” in scope, and “the only challenge was to make a satisfying western narrative.”

Source: Anime News Network.

You know what they should do? Just sign Josh Whedon on and make a Firefly x Cowboy Bebop crossover. That idea’s so radical it might just bloody work!

Imagine, Captain Reynolds squaring off with Spike…. River and Kaylee and Edward…. Faye and Inara sharing some ‘women’ stories. ヽ( >∀<)ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA

The President…. is my childhood friend

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:34:54 +0000

townberry:wow
this is a fucked up game
.ok…err l4d session
now zombies horde sounds more normal
kurogane: yeah

I couldn’t resist posting this up. This shit is just too fucking hillarious.

Another “YES! WE CAN!” to the Japanese eroge industry!

Animelo 2009 Day 2 Song List

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:50:22 +0000

If you’d thought last night’s Happy Material duet was ~~disappointing~~ surprising, guess what happened today….

1 『DISCOTHEQUE』～『MonStAR』/水樹奈々+平野綾 (Nana Mizuki + Hirano Aya)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RAGE (╬ ಠ益ಠ)
RAGE (╬ ಠ益ಠ)
RAGE (╬ ಠ益ಠ)
RAGE (╬ ಠ益ಠ)
RAGE (╬ ಠ益ಠ)

8 『霊喰い (Tamakui)』/妖精帝國 (Yousei Teikoku)
9 『last Moment』/妖精帝國 (Yousei Teikoku)

Woot! Yousei Teikoku~! And Tamakui performed live!

23 『魂のルフラン (Tamashii no Refrain)』/飛蘭+奥井雅美 (Faylan + Masami Okui)

Weird choice for a duet, but this sounds interesting.

27 『DANZEN!ふたりはプリキュア（ver.Max Heart）』/田村ゆかり+新谷良子 (Tamura Yukari + Shintani Ryoko)

Woah! Shintani Ryoko + Yukarin duet!

… and the main highlight:

40 『Gimmick Game』/水樹奈々+ m.o.v.e
41 『深愛』/水樹奈々+Suara
42 『悦楽カメリア』/水樹奈々
43 『Orchestral Fantasia』/水樹奈々

Awesome song choices by Nana this year and I can’t wait to hear the duet between her and Suara of Shin’ai. I daresay that would be a real awesome combo. Also Etsuraku Camelia and Orchestral Fantasia combo really hit me, because those are two of my favourite Nana songs from ULTIMATE DIAMOND and GREAT ACTIVITY respectively.

Anyways, full song list for Day 2 can be found here: http://pc.animelo.jp/rebridge/whatsnew/?p=090823_set

Animelo 2009 Day 1 FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:59:50 +0000

１曲目　残酷な天使のテーゼ　石川智晶　angela

HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN.

８曲目：マイペース大王/桃井はるこ+manzo

Oh lol Momoi singing this song in a duet?

１６曲目：みっくみくにしてあげる♪【してやんよ】/初音ミク
１７曲目：ブラック★ロックシューター/初音ミク

I really want to know how did ‘Miku’ appear on stage. But BLACK ROCK SHOOTER? Holy shit, it’s a bloody official now.

２４曲目：ハッピー☆マテリアル/堀江由衣+茅原実里みのりんｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!

Hocchan + Minorin duet but HAPPY MATERIAL?

ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀< )ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA
ヽ( >∀<)ﾉ AHAHA AHAHA AHAHAHAHA

Oh dear now I can’t wait for the DVD/BD.

P.S. No, I did not go for Animelo 09 in person. Just getting second hand reports from 2ch and friends who are there :P

P.P.S Official song list for Day 1 has been uploaded: http://pc.animelo.jp/rebridge/whatsnew/?p=090822_set
WTF so fast! But FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I WANT TO WATCH THE CRUEL ANGEL THESIS DUET.

About SaiMoe 2009…

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 02:08:56 +0000

Yeah, I’ve noticed a lot of you guys want me to cover SaiMoe this year, but frankly to say after three years, a lot of the novelty’s gone for me. Especially after last year’s Kagamin’s win, which was actually the first year I’d thought SaiMoe had a decent winner.

Well, that’s not to say I won’t cover it, but don’t expect me to cover the pre-lims. It’s too much work and I’m in for a busy period now (final year of my studies), so if I do cover SaiMoe 2009, it’ll probably be when the group finals or the tournament proper starts.

In the mean time, Moetron is offering daily coverage about SaiMoe, or you can always go to the usual Animesuki forums thread for results updates.

Bonus corner: Characters I’m hoping to see in the proper bracket this year:-

Sunohara Mei
Horo
Shishidou Takane
Akiyama Mio
Fujibayashi Kyou (lol)
C.C (lool)
Asuka Langley Shikinami (what?!~)
Katsura Hinagiku (even her mother’s in the running!)
Ana Coppola (lol IchiMashi makes an appearance this year!)
Felli Loss (as if)
Shinouji Matsurika (always entertaining)

The World’s Most Influential Person according to TIME Magazine.

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:37:54 +0000

Is apparently moot. Yes, moot. No I am not fucking kidding you. It’s 4chan’s moot. And in second place is Anwar Ibrahim LOL! That’s even more unbelievable than moot! Hell, Obama’s 37th on the list, ROFL.

Seriously what?! Next time, stick to pen-and-paper, dear TIME Magazine. Article can be found here: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1894028,00.html

Update: Details of the hack can be read here, well played /b/. mARBLECAKE ALSO THE GAME for sure.

Akamatsu wants to do hadoukens as well

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 03:25:05 +0000

Canned Dogs recently posted an article about Akamatsu commenting on the recent increase of popularity of the Negima manga, which he says;

Akamatsu’s opinion is that the current direction of the manga is good as the battles have been pretty compact and it’s good to have an increase in readership even if just for a short period of time.

However he feels that it’ll be safe to return the manga to normal again, as the popularity would probably not drop sharply after having become so popular now. As an analogy he says it’s like how he doesn’t want to rapidly do shoryukens, he wants to use some hadoukens to zone too.

And I would like to respond with; “Thank the heavens!”.

Seriously I was waiting for that. If you asked me about my opinion of Negima nowadays, I would say that the Rakan battle is definitely a filler arc. Why so? Because they were concentrating on the fight itself solely. Most people have seemed to forget that there is a pressing story going on involving the fate of Magic World and the seething rivalry between Ala Alba and Fate Averruncus.

In fact, it’s been a long time since there was any real development about that end, ever since the Rakan arc started circa chapter 238 or so. It’s now Chapter 248 which means it’s been 3 months (including Akamatsu’s infamous 1 week breaks every 4 chapters) since the main story ’stopped’.

It’s an unbearably long time, especially for me who has been reading Negima ever since it’s debut back in 2003. One of the strengths of the Negima manga has been the fact that Akamatsu never neglects the main story even during filler chapters or fights and we’ve all seen that skill over the past 6 years of the manga. In fact, this is probably the first time that Akamatsu has ‘ignored’ the main story for so long and I was beginning to worry about him losing his touch finally.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do love the fights in Negima, and honestly speaking, they are one of the best parts of the manga. In fact, Rakan’s fight is one of the most impressive fights of the series so far.

But every time there is a fight in Negima, it’s not just about the battles and techniques, in the background there is a valid context for the fight to go on and the fights never fully focused on just the fighting. For example the school festival tournament was all about stopping Chao’s plan and we all had that in mind as Negi progressed through the tournament.

Rakan’s fight though, was more about for the sake of fighting than anything about the ongoing story, and while that made for a nice break, it’s been taking a bit long for my liking and having the main story paused for that long is not really a good thing in my books. It will be hard to get back on track with the story after this long and I guess a reread of the older chapters seems in order. Also I am starting to miss seeing the girls, except for Ako, whom surprisingly hijacked quite a bit of the current arc.

The battle with Rakan has definitely taken too long a time and taken up too much attention and I’m glad that Akamatsu himself has expressed intent to return the manga back to normal after this. The core of Negima isn’t just about the fights, there’s also an overarching, engrossing story to tell as well. I just hope that this aspect of the manga will not be forgotten, in light of the new ‘fanbase’ that Negima as gotten.

Negima Ala Alba OAD set GET!

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:06:00 +0000

Went to Kinokuniya to pick up my order for the THIRD time in 10 days to collect my order of Negima! Vol. 25 Limited Edition, after they trolled me last Saturday. To my most pleasant surprise, Kino actually gave me 20% off (RM 170 -> RM 136) my Negima Vol. 25 LE! Must’ve been a reward for my loyalty to them \o/.

The card this time round is of Albireo, while the Vol. 25 LE cover is an awesome illustration of Setsuna getting stripped. It’s really kinda worth buying the LE’s just for Akamatsu’s awesome ecchi renditions of the tankouban cover.　Actually I might also buy the normal edition of Vol. 25, since it’s Secchan on both… orz

mmm~ delicious Secchan

I can’t really say I liked OAD 3, I didn’t properly watch it but I did notice the production quality dropping for it already. And I have no idea if I ever will complete subbing OAD 2 and 3, I’ve been busy the past few months as well as lacking in the motivation to do them. I do have a rough script up for 2 so maybe I will eventually complete it.

And finally, the complete set of all three LE’s. Cost in total = RM 170 + SGD 55.92 (yea, i bought the second one in Singapore) + RM 136 = RM 440 ~ USD 118. (Wow, it looks so cheap when converted to USD… orz.)

Ah! My Goddess 20th Anniversary Artbook

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:21:03 +0000

I went to Kinokuniya for the second (SECOND!!) time this week with some friends and fell in to temptation again, buying myself the 20th Anniversary artbook of Ah! My Goddess, with a 20% discount (saving me RM 32,which is quite a substantial amount).

My wallet despairs, but my heart rejoices though, since the book is quite worth the RM 130 I paid for it, as it’s really thick. It also contains just about every damn Ah! My Goddess color illustrations over the past 20 years.

There’s even an entire section dedicated to all of the tankouban covers where you get to see how much the art of A!MG has changed over the years from the “oh my god wtfugly” style back when it first started to the current “Belldandy’s eyes look so hollow” style. (I still think the best Belldandy is during the mid 90’s by the way.)

A long interview with Kosuke Fujishima is at the back of the book…

… and an index of all the illustrations and where it was sourced from.

The inside back of the book.

The artbook is really a worthwhile buy for fans of the series and I am glad to own it myself. This is really what artbooks should be like, :D.

If you want the original photos I used for this post, they are all nicely zipped up for download.

P.S. Right after publishing this post, I get an SMS from Kino: “Dear customer. Your order for Negima Vol. 25 Limited Edition has arrived at the store. Please proceed to….”.

…..WTF Kino? I just bloody came back from there!
…… and they said the book’s gonna arrive NEXT week when I placed the order orz.