I still haven’t been able to locate a photo of me as a child in my family’s house garden waving the yellow and lime green plastic Sword of Omens I had as a child. However, these guys are designing weapons or designing pretty awesome real props, and have made my dorky childhood dreams come true.
Its amazingness is beyond words.
And YES. Even though Thundercats aired in the mid-80s, I saw them in the early 90s in their dub version, and it was still pretty goddamn awesome.
A long long LONG time ago (actually, about three years ago), I made a rough list of Yu Aoi films I had watched and ranked them on MUBI (then TheAuteurs). Since I’m way too lazy to bother adding films to their database, unless I really REALLY wanted the films to be on their database, I’m just gonna work on the ranking here, like I started with my Russian fandom love Chulpan Khamatova.
You know, since Yu’s Itoh website re-vamp, the site sucks. They haven’t updated since forever, and they took out the section where Yu sometimes did short postings. However, the biggest drawback has been the lack of updates, and this is why I found out that Yu was on one of the episodes of Galileo 2 through tweets mentioning it (on June 3rd). So… nobody knew, I suppose?
So I had to catch up with Galileo 2 episodes, since I wasn’t watching the show due to the lack of much Shibasaki Kou, and was conveniently waiting for the subtitles (and a blank space in my schedule) to actually watch Episode 8.
I had missed Yu-chan so much.
Busted!
As you know, or maybe don’t, Yu’s been improving her cold-heart crime-committing girl persona. She did pretty great in her guest in Unubore Deka, and was great in Shokuzai. She’s actually been doing her bad girl characters a lot more interesting that her good girls (Double Face, Mottomo Toi Ginga). In Galileo 2 she’s playing an actress who’s obsessed with- hmm… let’s call it ” hardcore method acting,” so she’s obsessed with recording every bit of conversation she has in every day life, as well as her experiences, including how it feels to get away with 1st degree murder.
Though the episode seems to play straight-forward with a locked-room case and Yu’s character having the motive and access to commit the crime, there’s a twist- which is pretty obvious when you re-watch the show haha (the framing shots give it away), but with Yu’s acting going from calm to elated (for getting away with it), from elated to poker-face, to poker-face to complete hysterical satisfaction and landing in cruel reality… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yu go through so much in one single sequence.
I wasn’t too enamored by Pixar’s Monsters University even though Monsters Inc. is one of my favorites (or maybe BECAUSE I liked that one so much?), but this clip of the Japanese-dubbed version popped up in my YouTube feed, and it’s just tenfold the cuteness that the original audio track was because- well, because Japan is so damn hardcore about their dubbing [2].
Plus, Disney (and as an extension, Pixar) are the kings of international dubs [1][2].
And they also do worldwide releases pretty okay. Except when Japan has to wait AGES to get some stuff — but serves them right, when they make us wait for everything they do for ages as well.
Guh. I can’t. I’ve been trying to fight it, really. For YEARS. But a while back, Gee made it into my iTunes library just because, and instead of staying in there, it migrated into my iPod.
And, it was sort of alright. Then I did my trip and Taiwan was obsessed with Kpop, so it was Korean varieties every night at the hotel (if it wasn’t Taiwanese food shows), and Taeyeon was in so many of them. And “that chick from SNSD” came to have a name, despite all of them meshing together coz they’re just so freaking many. And then, she’s just so damn funny.
I don’t have any opinion on her singing or dancing, though I think she’s above average singing- especially in the group. So I’m unwilling to add any of those tags. I also don’t think of her as particularly oozing sex appeal, but she’s very pretty. Like in Hyori’s case, I prefer her casual.
In regards of that Family Outing episode, though. I still would pick Hyori ;)
New beautiful actor alert!
I was deciding if he looked a little bit like Josh Hartnett mixed in with a little Chris O’Donnell but immensely more attractive. And luckily, age-appropriate as well!
The latest blogging revolution is coming?
Though it seems, somehow, that the people at WordPress want to turn itself into “an operating system,” — I can’t really see how, coz I don’t use WordPress for anything else other than blog — some very smart and all tech-wiz group of people have put together a blogging platform they’ve named Ghost. The biggest change is the way they handle your data dashboard.
They recently completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, and for 10 pounds you could get a digital download of Ghost (I suppose for install?), though the video to promote the project and some of the benefits of the campaign make it seem like you can also sign up for usernames (like WordPress.com?). Some of the stats displayed on the dashboard seems to suggest some time of system connectivity.
The other exciting aspect is its Markdown feature. The video makes it really really appealing to see how you can do almost magic to format and make your post pretty.
Of course, there’s also theme customization and the way it handles data, it seems that Ghost will work out across platforms and layouts. Flip it, turn it — just basic fluid design. Front-end and back-end. It seems that Ghost will let you work on post through your tiny mobile devices quite flawlessly, which isn’t one of WordPress strongest features. Then again, I hate having to whip something out on a smartphone or tablet.
You can check the Ghost features on their site, though it’s not yet available.
Or, at least, you got your first steps into the door.
Yes, Shiina Ringo music videos are being uploaded on VEVO accounts, as well as Tokyo Jihen ones, at 360p or 480p- BUT, baby steps. They’re pretty good 360p videos, though. They look better than some HD versions unofficially uploaded and ripped from the net. I’m not picky as long as Japan lets me watch the music videos of the artists I like and stops me from worrying whether the video I’m posting is gonna disappear in the next few days.
A dose of Ashida Mana’s cuteness pick-me-up~
I know she’s growing up so quickly, and she’s got a small role in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim — probably that one small scene for which she got papped in Toronto. I suppose she’s playing a kid version of Rinko Kikuchi… I never though they would look like each other, but I guess it works for Hollywood.
I swear, every time I search for photos of Ashida Mana, I end up cooing and awing. She really melts all my sorrows away. It doesn’t matter if she grows up because we will have Mother, and hopefully (giving much much good vibes for that) she will have a good childhood and grow up to be a sensible adult and not be effed up by this business. Those are my wishes. Will always be.
My mother says that she could stop wars with that smile.
Who grew up watching the Street Fighter II series?
I used to tape this every afternoon because I was never on time from school, they used to show it after Gargoyles on Frecuencia Latina, and then after we got cable for the first time- actually a few years after that, I think — Cartoon Network Latin America got all big on showing anime series, and among the Inuyasha or Rurouni Kenshin episodes they used to broadcast, they also had some of this.
I remember they also used to show Sakura Card Captor and Corrector Yui [1, with latino audio].
Around that time, it was when I was trying to google this song online but back then it was nearly impossible to find song information if you had very little info, especially if you didn’t speak the language. I did eventually find that this song was called Kaze Fuiteru (aka. The Wind Blows, 風吹いてる – by Yuki Kuroda), and that my friend had a CD with songs that were anime themes that contained the track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOqYuKIGZo
Of course, the Spanish version they did [1] is not as good as the original. But I’m glad that they at least kept the original music, instead of changing it to something “hard rock” like in the American broadcast.
