Look who's 3 year old picture is hanging around at tｈe hostel entrance.
Pepper Lunch for lunch. Not that overly expensive, crappy store we have in Melbourne pretending to be some gourmet food.
Nakano Sun Plaza.
Getting in line for goods at 12.30 for the 3.30 show.
Stupid Mano Erina t-shirts always look crap. Why cant they design better looking shirts.
Staff member taking videos to be used at the end of the show.
Unfortunately, my seat was on the last row. Not as bad as Scandal in Budokan but not as good as being 8 seats away from Erina two years ago. Should have had the foresight to bring binoculars like the dude next to me.
Set list wise, this is the perfect Mano Erina show. All the crappy songs were relegated to the medley section. I bloody lost my voice cause every song was chantable. So happy she did the full Sekai wa Summer Party.
I hated Banzai when it came out cause it sounded like it was trying to hard to be a sing along but man, is it fun to do so. Only in Japan can you get away with a chorus that goes Banzai, Banzai, Lucky, Lucky!
OMFG. Why are the Jpop gods this cruel???!! Fujimoto Miki concert on the same day as the Nipponbashi Street Festival???!!! I've always wondered how it would be like to hear Mikitty sing Romantic Ukare Mode live and chant along and this is my chance. I could just go to the ticket reseller in Harajuku today.
Seriously, it would be very fun. On the other hand, she's only got an album with like 5 good songs. I`m betting shes going to sing it twice. Plus I`ve got a few more concerts to go and Nipponbashi SF would be something different and something I`ve always wanted to do as well. The best alternative to Comicket. Counter argument is that I can always go Nipponbashi Street Festa another year. What are the chances of me singing along with Mikitty, `Miki-sama, Miki-sama, oshioki kibonnu` which means Miki-sama please punish me? Decisions, decision....
I really love the part in Next Myself when the audience sings the Next Myself part Mano-chan sings the next line. She brought up that the staff members wanted the whole Datenshi Eri skit but in that time they could have done 3 songs. I whole heartedly agree. More songs please which is why I just adore the set list.
Plenty of fuck ups in this concert which I love. Mano-chan misplayed a key during the first song though hardly noticeable. She stuffed up the start of the second song which was LaLaLaSoSoSo and made fun of herself. Live and stuff ups is great. I don`t want bloody perfect pre-recorded performance. There were some problems with the sound where the speakers lost connection three times during the concert.
Erina really spiced up the songs by changing keys and variations to them which I really like instead of trying to sound like the record. I want to hear her play her piano without a background track though.
She started crying a bit during the Arigatou song which I don`t like. Just find it a bit boring for the second last song.
Last song was of course, her best song, My Days for you.
Can`t wait to watch the concert on my PC.
My ticket. Thanks as always to bframe for acquiring it for me!
Roast katsu plus cheese. Should have went for regular katsu instead. Instantly fell asleep when I got back. I must have been way more tired than I realised. Lesson for the day, spending more money on seats is worth it. Got a whole day of Street Fighter today while I ponder Mikitty vs Nipponbashi Street Festa.
For some reason I wrote the name as hagi last year.
Photokano kiss coming to Vita.
Interesting that they sell download only games with box.
I'm definitely getting this.
Ryu ga gotoku 5 special PS3.
No idea who she is but definitely my type.
Tomodachi ga sukunai exhibition at Gamers Akiba. Do not watch the anime it is so boringly generic.
Kenshin on cover of magazine at smoking room in Akiba.
Police line at Shinjuku station.
Definitely not suicide, no place to jump to death from? Stabbing?
You cant go Shinjuku without visiting here. It actually felt too safe at 6pm. Result of Ishihara `cleaning up the streets`? I only realise the correlation of that and Kurohyou 2 after watching it.
Gave Musashiya ramen another go. Very generic.
Got a couple hundred points in my quest for A rank. There was a Fei Long grandmaster called A and I made sure to sit on the same row. Then he moved across and stole my points with his B Cammy. Ggrrr.
Outside Shinjuku station. Very good band.
Berserk goods at Waldo 9 in Shinjuku, the only cinema in Kanto showing the 18+ version.
Very good movie. The first was cut and paste scenes from the series. The second was better but the 3rd, they really know what they are doing now. I like that there are a lot of new perspectives and it doesn`t strictly adhere to the manga in terms of camera/viewpoints. To me, the more different the better as long as they keep the iconic images. Like the Guts fight up the stairs after getting Griffith was claustrauphobic and conveyed Gut`s fury very well.
The Eclipse scene is godlike. Very, very operatic. Its sort of the Ned Stark moment of series and to me, they made the psychology stuff more obvious ie did Griffith throw himself on Casca as a calculated move to keep her from leaving and not just wanting to bone her? Some of the animation looks a bit rough but the 3D is much improved. If only they had the budget of a Ghibli film. Great job after stumbling out of the block. I really hope they get to do a 4th movie and release it in Winter so I can come watch.
Finally, surprisingly lots of women watching. Maybe only 10 percent but not a few. Women going by themselves as well as in pairs. I`ve only met one other Berserk fan in Melbourne in so many years and here I was in a cinema full of Berserk fans. You know how they are all fans? The credit starts and NO ONE LEAVES. I go watch a Marvel movie on the first day in Melbourne and most people leave. Everyone sits down for the after credit scene. I fucking love Japan!!!!
- Why hasn't anyone created a service where you get knocked out before a long trip and wake up at your destination?
- Having to fly to crazy hot Cairns and a 2 hour wait for the connecting flight and then another hour for Narita Express to Tokyo.
- It really feels like I never left. No omfg I'm in another country feeling. Then again I spend all my non working hours watching Japanese stuff and playing Japanese games.
- Very lovely 2 degrees at night, especially coming from crazy week of constant 33 degree days in Melbourne. If only I can spend all my Australian summers in Japan or vise versa.
- Saw some guy playing the 3DS XL on the train. Very tempted.
The time for the 4th annual 'Empty my Savings in Japan' trip has come. This is going to be the granddaddy of all my trips so far. I'm just glad its here cause I'm so tired of all the planning, booking and rebookings, research and agonising on how to fill out my itinerary. I'm less excited and more relieved that I can stop thinking about it and actually do it.
The previous trips just feel like a blur to me, as if it were a dream. Pretty sure it'll come back to me once I arrive at Tokyo Station. Join me as I spend all my retirement money on Japanese entertainment and food.
Tonbi is really growing on me. My initial impressions were of a watchable crying porn dorama and it had a lot of crying in the first two episodes. The crying became less and it became more about the characters and more showa type slapstick humour for lack of a better term. Its a father son dorama set in the past and present about how this emotional block-headed father managed to raise his son to be so well mannered everyone thinks he is gay.
I really liked episode 4. Its my favourite form of Japanese sentimentality, where people are trying to say something without saying it and drying damn hard to be stoic. Contrast that with the always gushing Beautiful Rain.
Episode 5 sees Kenshin in high school and his acting is pretty decent. The whole looking into Kenshin's past and its relevance to his current situation with the hot MILF has really kept Tonbi from becoming a moral lesson of the week series. My opinion on Tonbi has changed from watchable to good. If the quality holds up, it might go to must watch.
I'm looking forward to finishing this series so I can watch the NHK's Tonbi special. Can't wait to see Tsutsumi Shinichi's Yasuo who will no doubt be less slapstick. My guess is its going to be like the movie Densha Otoko vs the dorama series.
I really loved Tsumi to Batsu. Vulcan300 did an unreleased sub for ep 1 and it blew me away. Watched the rest of it and did not like the second half as much. However, there were no Japanese subs being a WOWOW dorama and I couldn't get to enjoy the meat of a lot of the conversations. Unsolved Cases has subbed the series up to episode 4 and I figured I should give it another go.
I didn't write about the later episode because I felt I couldn't criticise a series I half understood and the second half was a lot of talking while the first half was more murder thriller. Rewatching Tsumi to Batsu with English subs made me realise that I missed out on enjoying the themes in this story. Even when I understood most of the dialogue, concentrating on listening just takes so much attention I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I really enjoyed Ibu Masato's prosecutor character trying to appeal to Miroku's pride and Miroku's self righteousness making him talk even though he knew that's what the prosecutor wanted.
There's lots of interesting ideas in this story. The idea of freedom versus finding happiness living in servitude to others. The idea that perhaps servitude is mere fear of loneliness. Miroku's idea that love is violence. That he feels entrapped by his sister's love. That Ameya was killed by Echika's self sacrificing 'love'. Miroku's idea that killing can be great if it is backed by principles.
I'm seeing Tsumi to Batsu as more than just a great suspense dorama. We watch doramas to be entertained, to perv but its the exploration of ideas that makes doramas worth thinking about. After all, its a famous novel by Dosteyevsky and a literary classic. Speaking of which, I think I'm not going to continue watching Karamazov Kyoudai. I'm probably better off reading the book to find out the story. Too many doramas to watch now, and there are a few doramas from last season that I want to at least try. Time is a precious commodity and I should not put up with bad acting.
I'm eagerly anticipating the subs for the final two episodes. I didn't get Miroku and Echika's relationship besides Echika being a representative of his sister and I still don't see why Miroku even sees them as the same but let's hope the subs will make things clearer. The first four episodes are still a must watch for me.
