Kurogane's Anime Blog » Real Life

きみでいて　ぶじでいて

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 12:42:47 +0000

Yoko Kanno really does some of the most beautiful music around.

My thoughts go out to all the victims of the recent Sendai M9.0 Earthquake. May their loved ones be safe and sound.

Happy Singles Acknowledgement Day

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:42:38 +0000

God, is it that time of the year again?!

I am going to run of out synonyms in about 4 more years. Sigh.

Inception: A random collection of afterthoughts about the movie

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 06:49:13 +0000

Slowpoke accusations be excused, I finally got to watch Inception on the big screen last night.

It was so utterly brilliant and mind-bending. Half of my mind is currently inaccessible, pondering and de-constructing the whole movie in my background of my subconscious; a huge problem at work. But then again, this always happens to me whenever I finish a story so brilliant and cathartic at the same time. It’s exactly the same state-of-mind I was stuck in when I first finished Evangelion^*1 (up to EoE).

Inception is one of those rare productions that not only is brilliantly layered and steeped with imagery, it also manages to touch out to something innately in my soul.

An example is the time-dilation effect in the movie is something that I experience daily, as a master of catnapping. I always wake up feeling as if I’ve just experienced a period of time a few times much longer than the real duration of my naps, and I daresay many will find that similar. Inception using that as a central plot device really resonated with me.

The overriding consensus about Inception is that it is a movie about filmmaking, and it’s something I highly agree on. But one of the best views about it that I subscribe to now after watching states the whole movie is basically a dream and there isn’t a ‘solid’ reality grounding it, which is basically as meta as fuck as you can get.

This brings me to a book I believe that really should be read in accompaniment to watching Inception; The Stories of Ibis. The idea of layered “realities”^*2 that is shared between both works offers a really interesting complementary view between each other, yet it is amazingly contrasting in origins. More importantly, while “inception” is the device driving the plot in the eponymous movie, Stories of Ibis ends with the inception of an idea; both works masterfully using the concept as a cathartic device.

Ah, but enough of the literary-wannabe comparisons. ~~That is the problem I have with my own string-of-consciousness writing.~~ The really appealing part of Inception is just how it captures my imaginations so easily, leaving me changed yet still feeling essentially same apart from the feeling I’ve had a new dimension opened up to me. A new angle and view that feels it has been a part of myself for a long time, but only just noticed it was there.

Inception is utterly brilliant, smart and left a parasite of an idea and worldview in my mind; staying rooted in my mind and making it’s indelible excellence in it. It is an example of works that transcend boundaries; of media, enviroments and even plot holes. The fact that the ending is kept ambiguous^*3 is icing on the cake.

———————–

¹One of the interesting similarities I noticed with Inception and Evangelion is the concept of a whitespace – a Limbo – that is the depths of our subconscious and can be molded and shaped by the characters themselves. It’s also interesting to note that whenever characters in Inception dive down to Limbo, they end up on a shoreline, which instantly recalls to me the memories of EoE’s enigmatic ending. Not actually a surprising similarity but Christopher Nolan uses it in a more utilitarian manner than Anno did, although Anno’s creations arguably had a more grounded reality compared to Inception, relatively speaking.

²Forgive the liberal usage of “reality” here, but in a sense, the ideas are relatively similar between both works. The dreams in Inception are the mind’s subconscious constructs, while in Ibis the Layers are also similar excepting that it is created by the AI’s own self-conscious programmings based on their learning experiences. I really should finish that Ibis article languishing in my Drafts folder for a month or two, by now.

³I believe that the top eventually stopped spinning. I must add that the totem idea was severely underutilized in Inception.

Love

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:06:56 +0000

Love is ultimately

a choice between making yourself happy

or everyone else happy.

Just feeling philosophical today. Pic is semi-related.

Happy Chinese New Year/Singles Appreciation Day/Valentine’s Day

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:30 +0000

Okay, that was a rather looooooooong post title.

First off, to all my Chinese diaspora readers, I wish you a Happy Chinese New Year 2010! May this year bring about continued prosperity and happiness to everyone!

Next, I am going to continue on with…errr… what has become a rather annual tradition here… Happy Singles Appreciation Day!

Yes, it’s SAD guy again! How many of you still feel he’s needed? I hope not many :P.

And finally, to the lucky ones celebrating Valentine’s Day…. hope you find the need to use protection today!

Merry Christmas!

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 01:49:58 +0000

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all my readers celebrating it today!

Langkawi Trip

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:46:36 +0000

Going off for a trip to Langkawi for the next 3 days, so there won’t be any posts about. Haven’t really been there before, so hopefully it’ll be a nice trip.

And hopefully, I won’t break any banks buying duty-free stuff there, although from the feedback I’ve read, there really isn’t anything worth it for me except for chocolates :P.

Murakami marathon

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:52:12 +0000

Wind-up Bird Chronicles, Kafka on the Shore, After Dark, Dance Dance Dance and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. All five for less than RM 150. Also Six Suspects, Tale of Two Cities and Sherlock Holmes.

Excuse me if I don’t blog as much in the next 2 months or so. Too bad Norwegian Wood sold out. Should’ve bought them all on the first day of the Popular Bookfest. But still, awesome discounts are awesome…..

DaiCon is finally over!

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:37:02 +0000

After a year of preparation, with much hard work, blood, sweat and tears, DaiCon’s finally over. I’ve just about only finished with the hall clean-up and woke up after getting a real night’s sleep after 5 days.

I’ve gotta admit, right up til and during the event, I still had my qualms about pulling such a big event off and when the concert started I still had a feeling this is all in a dream. Now that it’s all over, and after I’ve had a good night’s rest, only it is sinking in that we did pull it off.

I’m happy that the Minorin concert went without a hitch and pretty much nearly everyone who went had good things to say about it. Of course I do realise the event wasn’t perfect and there are a great many grumblings about it (I’m not the mineral water guy in case any more retards think I am) but what’s happened has happened.

It was also great that I managed to finally meet up with tj_han and DarkMirage, both of them bloggers that I still do read and respect. Owen_S and Faye also made their way here, as well as finally getting to meet j1mone and danie. Only thing I regret was that I couldn’t actually spend a lot of time with them thanks to me having the handle the event.

Of course there’s still a ton of work to finish off, post mortems, reports and such, but I’m glad to have been part of DaiCon. I can’t really say anything about the future plans for the event now, but I sure wouldn’t mind signing up for it for a second time.

T-minus 1 to DaiCon

Kurogane Shiroikaze — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:16:45 +0000

Oh god, DaiCon’s only 1 day away. So many stuff left to do! So many tasks to complete! So many things to buy!

And to cap it off, my phone f##$@#g decided to die on me yesterday, OMG OMG OMG ! And Kyo Ani are still trolling us with Endless Eight OMG OMG OMG!