Timeless -Part 2-

This is long overdue, really. Usually I'll update this blog the same day or (at least) the next day after I updated the Livejournal but this time it took me 3 days. 3 FREAKING DAYS. I'm blaming the game Luxor (for being so addictive for some odd reason) and the Windows Media Player (for well, playing out the music -Mew's songs in particular, damn the band is awesome!- available) but in actuality it is only me to blame, isn't it? =_=||

To be frank it's obvious already the purpose of this post so they you go, the link.

Timeless -Part 2-

I mean, duh. Should I really explain it every time? O_o??

So on the last post I mentioned the probability of this one-shot to extend until 5th part, and apparently (to my relief) it will not go to that extend, as the next update will be the last part of Timeless. YES~!! \O/ I'll update it someday next month as I have to start writing a new one now, and you know I'm not that productive of a person, so yeah~

And when I DO going to write, (here goes) Ms 'Editor' a.k.a the dongsaeng (who currently is online on the next table LOL -and yes, she don't read this...yet) may be either:-

1) Nag me to write
2) Ask for spoilers (damn she ALWAYS does this)
3) Give me the don't-you-tell-me-anything-if-you-just-going-to-whine-at-me-later look

....and I guess the order will be no 3 first, followed by no 2 (when I told her I got idea) and no 1 (because she wants to read it heh). Predictable, but sadly there's nothing I can do about it. Heck, she managed to do them just fine (well, except no 3 is replaced with a LONG silence at the other end of the line) when I was in campus (the long long LONG Facebook messages can be quite horrifying), what will be the difference now that we are under one roof?

But as formidable a foe the editor is, the biggest challenge is myself and the laziness as I can't quite predict myself well, which sounds weird coming from one self, I know.

I mean, I don't even watch ONE episode of anime since I'm home, which says a lot.

Heh.

Enough of that though, for as lazy as I am, I do (I REALLY DO) have a plan on updating the blog with recommendation post-

Common sense: Come on, you said that for almost every random post =_=||

..........

Okay, I admit that but, BUT I really going to write these postS (yes, there are 2 of them):

1) Giant Killing (anime and manga)

-This is the only manga (so far) that is awesome enough to force me to read the Japanese raw, with the kanji and all. While I don't really get what happened (reminder: Kanji is the one big barrier in Japanese which is out to ruin my head, really) I at least get a gist of it (maybe 10-15%?) with my limited Kanji knowledge. Now that I think of it, maybe because of this that I haven't started my JLPT N4 revision? *Gasp!*

-Reason for post: THIS MANGA NEEDS MORE LOVE. Also planning this since Volume 19 ends in the middle of a freaking match (and my fav player is not playing due to collecting yellow card in the previous match -at least that's the reason I can make from the situation) and DAMN VOLUME 20 CANNOT COME FAST ENOUGH ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH /shot

-Post will contain: Info on the series (Wikipedia), anime vs manga part (since I follow both), list of character (found from the anime main website, needs editing though), and of course, Fan-girling over the series (bias alert).

2) Mew (band)

-I never planned on writing a recommendation post for a band before, really. As much as I love my music, I'm not knowledgeable in the area (heck, I can't even differentiate the genres of music properly, that's how bad I am =_=||). BUT, I am ready to make exception because of this band. Why you ask? THIS. BAND. IS. AWESOME. for the reasons below:

1) This is the band that effectively removing more than 60% existing songs in my handphone playlist, and as I am typing this there is a plan to remove MORE songs and replace them with the WHOLE songs from their albums.

2) I am listening to their songs as I am typing this and almost every single time I sit in front of my laptop, since I first downloaded the whole discography of the band, which is on the 24th of May a.k.a ONE WEEK AGO WITHOUT FAIL.

3) This band and the awesomness effectively reducing my K-Pop and any other songs in that matter rate of listen to as high as 90% -and that includes TVXQ, Super Junior, Linkin Park, 3 Doors Down, you name it, heck even the ultimate bias Junsu-sama does not come close.

4) This also manages to make my planned Giant Killing post comes to a drastic halt, as the fan-girling switches 180 degree to this band instead, in merely one to two days.

5) I was waiting to see if I ever going to get bored by the songs, but ultimately I got pawned instead -each listen makes me like the songs more and until now the number of favorites is already up to 10++ (note that it is still counting).

6) Is planning to buy the albums and going to their live one day -which had been described as AWESOME by lucky people who had attended them-and yes, I'll be saving my money for them instead of K-pop groups (despite them never come to Malaysia yet, but hey, I can hope right?), sorry people, this is the band that I'm not going to miss in my life.

7) Effectively made me their fan by their songs alone in 3 days. That's not an easy feat, as I'm picky with my songs. Not to mention to make me like THE WHOLE ALBUM and have them on repeat -the editor can testify on this, she is forever amused by how much I love the band.

8) Seriously, my Facebook wall was (almost) spammed with their lyrics as statuses, and that's not including the statuses which clearly fan-girling over the band.

-Reason for post: THIS BAND NEEDS MORE LOVE. Yes, the same like Giant Killing, as both are awesome stuffs but sadly underrated. Also because I cannot stop listening to them and it drives me somewhat crazy that there is nobody to spazz about them (except Nazo and the editor) thus the decision to spread the word.

-Post will contain: Info (wikipedia), pictures of the band (maybe, and from Google) videos (Youtube), list of songs and recommendations -maybe some opinion and lyric but not that analytical, due to lack of appropriate knowledge in the area and yes, of course there will be fan-girling, but maybe, maybe lack of bias (now this is new) since I cannot choose ANY BIAS AT ALL among all the songs =_=||

So yeah, I made my plans. And the posts will DEFINITELY up, since I have most of the materials gathered already.

This also means that there is a HUGE chance I may not be writing any stories in this period.

Heh.

.........

Editor, gomen!

~The still-blasting-the headphones-with-Mew Heiji.

Music of the Day: Mew - Symmetry

[Like obviously. And for the first time I cannot choose which song to be mentioned. =_=||]

Timeless -Part 1-

Hi. Okay. Damn this is awkward. I mean it's already mid-May and here I am writing the first post for 2011 which should had happened way back during New Year. Alas, it's been a long time coming, but I'm here now, so let's just roll things over. After all, this is the start of the long-awaited 4 month holiday, can't afford to waste time, no? Heh.

(Pathetic as it is, I realized that I finally found things to blog after I finished a story, which often is far and between, to my chagrin. D:)

So I finished a story, a LONG one-shot titled Timeless. And I better put the link first, my fingers are twitching again I'm afraid I'll start rambling no-nonsense and forgot it.

Timeless -Part 1-

In my Livejournal as usual.

I first started writing this -quite- sometime ago (understatement indeed, this) after I finished Fruits Basket manga for the nth time (really, I lost track of how many times I read it, it's just too good!) and for some reason the plot keeps expanding and changing that when I really get to it I was like "How it come to this?!" kind of feeling. Not like it is a bad thing, to get surprised by myself once in a while is awesome, IMO.

The only down side to it is took too LONG of time that when I decide on the title 'Timeless', I can't help by cringed at the irony. I mean, the story itself might took timeless of time to complete, if not for somewhat strong willpower to finish it. And I am glad I did. :)

Heck, at point of time I wrote down the ending and wrote it backwards till the climax... =_=||

The style of this is also a new type and differs from my usual style of writing. It mirrors (albeit a bit) of the three-shot 'A Butterfly, A Louvre, and (Not) A Freer' in terms of all-over-the-place time-line (though that one's time-line is epically jumbled). I mixed the past and present time but it is not confusing, as the past is written in italic, so yeah~

So Timeless, which is actually my attempt to get back to 7 pages of MS Word for one-shot format ends up at 21 pages with 8, 513 words (during the study week no less, when I was supposed to study for the finals D:), and officially proves that the more I delayed my writing, the longer it will become due to lots of plot ideas coming and the more the relevant plot ideas inserted, the harder it is to actually stop writing.

My apparent inability to simplified the said plots are not helping either. =_=||

The first part ends at the 8/9th pages so I'm betting that this LONG one-shot will end as three-shot but Lj might hate me and say 'the post is too long' again so at most I'll end it at 5th part. Hopefully.

Do read it and give me your opinion/comments~ <3

Till then, have a nice day!

..................

Wait, isn't this kinda short? O_o??

(Apparently, a part of my mind that wants to read the just-finished-downloading Giant Killing manga -in Japanese raw no less, despite all the kanji out to burn my head- wins over the other part of my mind that wants to continue rambling no-nonsense here, so yeah.

BTW, Giant Killing is made of pure AWESOMNESS. Check out the anime and -if you are ready to face all the kanji and Nihongo- the raw manga too, for the English scanlation is barely available. Damn series needs more love! D:

Verdicts out, I'm out.)

~The-Currently-Crazy-Over-Giant-Killing Heiji

Music of the day: Sia - Breathe Me

Looking Back the Last Quarter of 2010.

Yes, that's the title of this post (considering my last post was on September this year). Before that though, it's Christmas, so, to all my friends who celebrates it (especially) and to everybody in the world reading this (generally), Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (and for once I'm not late in my festive greetings LOL -this was wrote on Christmas Eve after all)~

So.

As mentioned on the opening line of this post, I'm basically reminiscing (more like making up to the lack of posts in this blog =_=;) the last quarter of 2010 a.k.a this year, which was from September to December. It also helps that after the Raya Aidilfitri I bought myself a schedule book (my aunt bought me one with a cute chibi TVXQ on the cover and on the pages inside~) and made a habit of actually writing in it (am not one for details as it's too troublesome, but I really need a schedule that time due to the hectic days-more on it later) so yeah~ I am lucky I did for now I KNOW what the hell that I've been doing last few months (can't depend on my memory too much, it tends to fail me at times).

Thus, here it goes.

September marks the 2 week mid-sem break, from the 6th (might be earlier to others, but I left KAL on the 6th, so yeah~) including Raya Aidilfitri on the 10th until the 18th (yeah, I went back to KAL on that date, and to me that means break is over, heh). After that was the preparation for JCN, JLC, and APK which happened on October. Yeah, 3 events, in the same month, on the same bloody weekend. But we'll get to that later.

Basically JCN stands for Japanese Culture Night, an event where the students (mostly were Japanese language course students -who else if not?) introduces the Japanese culture in the form of games, food, etc. And then there's JLC, or Japanese Language Club, who are in charge of the exhibitions under the Language unit of PBIB for the Convocation Fair (I talked about the last year's event here) and APK, or Asas Pembudayaan Keusahawanan, which is a course in my syllabus this semester's practical.

In short, it can be summarized like this:-
JCN--> I was in the Souvenir department (for crying out loud!) and thus, we have to make/find/prepare souvenir for the games during JCN, and stuffs for the VIP/VVIP.
JLC--> For this I'm under the Games department of the exhibitions and got to stand by at the booth and handle the stuffs.
APK--> The practical is to set up booths and sell something (anything may do; selling stuffs/services/anything that seems fit) and apply whatever we've learns in the lectures to real situation.

Looking back, I never hated meetings as much as I did back then. I mean, I got at least one almost every freaking day for the rest of the month. Talk about hectic. But then I guess it can't be help since the events were all held on the first week of October.

And true to that, October comes with a great bummer since the 1st day (I got to write smaller on that particular day's space due to too many things happening), which was a Friday. I got a Psychology midterm, an Account assignment to be submitted, and the JCN rehearsal on the evening all on a freaking day. And the next day, marks the weekend of hell. Yes, the events are finally here.

Since I don't have the ability to split myself into three (despite the fact that all the JCN AJKs are called JCN Ninja's LOL. Talk about irony) I end up dividing my priorities for the events, for one part I was at JLC, and then I ran to the JCN, and then help out by promoting our APK booth to random people visiting whichever booth I was attending to at that time (a.k.a persuading people especially my friends to buy LOL).

And that continues all the long until the climax of the event that night, which is also the closing ceremony for the JCN. Over? Nah, still got the other 2 events. APK ends the next day, the 3rd, and the JLC was supposed to be continued until 4th, but due to clash with lecture schedules, it ends on 3rd also.

Now that all the events are ending, the rest of October was marked with due date for assignments, oral tests, group assignments, and extra classes for 4 days for JLPT from the end of October to the beginning of November, which also marked the beginning of Study Week on the first week of November.

Study Week. Means Final Exam is here.

.....................................................................

How fast time flies, right? And that is exactly what my thoughts were at that time.

Final Exams for this semester took about 2-3 weeks depends on your schedule and courses. For E-Commerce students (me) we started the first paper on the 8th a.k.a the first day of the exam week with Database paper and ends with either Psychology paper on 22nd, or Seni paper on the morning of 24th. For me and some of the students though, we end the exam with Japanese paper on the evening of 24th.

If there's a (general) complaint during the exam week it was the schedule, since it was either too packed on one week or too free on the other week. For me, the schedule was 2 paper on the 1st week, 4 paper (and killer papers nonetheless, imagine having Accountancy on Monday and Yuszren's subject -nobody seems to remember the name of the subject and yes, he's my Technopreneurship a.k.a the horror subject last semester's lecturer- the next day, a day break for Raya Aidiladha and continues with Marketing paper, perfect) on the second week, and 2 paper on the final week.

Alas, we pulled through and Merdeka after the end of exam but for Japanese language students who takes JLPT, there was extra classes starting from 26th November until the 2nd of December (which to me, steals the meaning of Merdeka completely, who says we are free again?). So yeah, extra classes, from 8.30AM to 12.30PM, every freaking day. The campus' are already empty as it's already the semester break. Life's good, I know.

And that brings us to December.

There are 4 exam sites to take JLPT, which are KK (UMS obviously), KL, Ipoh, and Penang. I took the exam in KK as it will be easier and considering that now I'm living at Miri there's no need to go all the way back to the Peninsular (the flight ticket's price is not a joking matter, seriously).

Until the family said that we're all going back to Terengganu on December.

But there's no way that I can change the site so on the 3rd me and other exam candidates a.k.a my friends who took the exam at KK start the journey or the JLPT adventure like a friend of mine blogs about here (I bet you can tell that I'm lazy enough to type out the whole thing again when there's already somebody else who did, and I -kinda- admits to that, so yeah~).

So.

After the JLPT ends (my opinion on how was the exam were the same as my fellow friend which I put the link there, so no need further explanation I guess, but to add to that I count myself lucky the kanjis are not that hard -they were always my ultimate problem in Japanese- and the Grammar part got too much reading questions, it made me sleepy during exam =_=; Other than that I'm fine~), is the REAL Merdeka and we all going back to our hometown.

My flight from KK to KL was on 2PM++ and luckily the flight goes smoothly. I reached KL on about 4 almost 5PM, and then I spent my time hanging around at LCCT (as per usual) to wait for my next flight to KT on 8PM. To my surprise (somehow) the flight was not delayed, but it shook too much it drained my energy (not that I have much of it left) away.

Thus.

After that we went back to Dungun on the 7th and ah~ how I missed the place. The roads are wider now (especially in the city) and McD is finally opened (though the place is kinda un-strategic (?) to me, there's less people walking and less parking lot there IMO compare to where KFC and Pizza Hut are) yet the changes are not that drastic, I still can tell 'Ah, this is Dungun. It may be changed a bit but it is still the same old Dungun.' to my sister's amusement.

Heh.

Anyways we went down to Kuantan, visiting the relatives in Kemaman while at that and went back to Terengganu on the 12th, spent the days at my Grandma's and took the flight back to Miri on the 14th. The next day my dad's start working again (heck he even goes to office on Christmas for crying out loud!) and we just simply spent our days randomly here in Miri till the school opens again this new year.

Yes, I'll be going back to the Pumpkin Island on the New Year because my Japanese class (what else?) starts on the 3rd. Oh woe my short holiday~ T_T

Still, I guess January is not all that bad after all. Anime-wise (yes, it's my way to console myself) there's quite some new anime that is worth looking forward too! You can refer the list of the 2011 Winter Anime Season from Scamp's Winter 2011 chart or Neregate's chart. For me, my list of possible watch/favorite (of course) will be:-

-Kimi ni Todoke Season 2 (I watched the first season in marathon -yes- and downloaded the manga -yes- and the news come out of another season and I was like 'HELL YES!!!'. This will be in my top priority to download, hands down.)

-Fractale (No idea as in never heard about it before but hey it's NoitaminA, so it gets a shot as in interest by default. It helps the pic looks good to me.)

-Gosick (Same case with Fractale above -not the NoitaminA part, they earlier one in the sentence part- but this one got mystery, Gothic, and set in old European. Again, I think it's the preview picture that got me.)

-Hourou Musuko (I always want to read the manga of this one but somehow don't have the opportunity to do so. I know it's good though coz' a senpai at KAL keeps fan-girling over the said series so if I somehow can't download it I know she will~)

-Starry Sky (This one is...okay I know the premise and all is like DUH but I wiki-ed the series and it got HiroC, OnoD, FukuJun, Midorikawa Hikaru, Tomokazu Sugita, Soichiro Hoshi, and Akira Ishida all in one series. You see what I'm trying to say here? All of them are seiyuu biases damnit~)

-Mirai Nikki OVA (THIS. THIS. THEY SHOULD JUST MAKE IT INTO AN ANIME SERIES INSTEAD OF OVA DAMNITTTT~~~~ -if that doesn't warn you enough, this may rival Kimi ni Todoke in terms of anticipation meter this coming January, 'nuff said.)

So yeah~ all is well with the world. XD

About my writing...*sigh*

I have 10 stories with lack of plot in my draft folder (1 actually got the plot but it ends up being too long I found myself stuck, as usual OTL) so I'm open to anybody who got a plot, prompt, whatever just give them to me and I'll write it for you. IF I got the time, that is. But I guess that will actually (maybe) speed things up a bit. I'm in serious problem here after all.. ;A; So yeah, I really, really, REALLY appreciate it if you can give any idea to me. I thank you in advance! *bows*

And yet another year ends, safely tuck in memory. And this is getting damn freaking long I better stop before I start rambling randomly again (why do I always end up typing too much each post and not do the same for my stories? O_o??)

Alas, may 2011 be a good year to me and to you (since I doubt I'll update this blog with any posts till the new year, heck, this one is super long already!)

Till then, do take care and I'll ask for your guidance again on 2011! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu~ *bows*

~The-typing-too-much Heiji

Music of the Day: SHINee-Obsession

P/S: I end up loving more and more songs from their second album. First it's Lucifer, then A-Yo, Quasimodo, Shout Out, and now this one. Jonghyun's voice suits the song as he hits all those notes and I heard he wrote the lyrics? If that's true than he really did a great job! Anyway do try listen to this and I'm sure you'll like it too~ ^^

The Sons of a Battlecry

After been gone for what, 3 months maybe (!) I'm back. Uh-huh. Before anything though, to all Muslim all over the world (I know I'm late, but hey, when have I not? Duh.) Happy Eid Fitri or formally in Malay, Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri Maaf Zahir Batin. There, I said/type it. LOL. Formality aside, this post is going to be long (I hope not but knowing myself there's a lot to rant about lately *gets bricked*), so yeah~ You have been warned.

Let's start with the title post, which is a one-shot written last month and only posted now, really. There's a reason to that of course, apart from my lack of time and the suck which is the internet, but before we get to that here's the link, so that I don't forgot it. Apparently Livejournal said that the post is too long (duh!) so I had to cut it to two post instead, thus the double part. Tsk.

The Sons of a Battlecry -Part 1-

The Sons of a Battlecry -Part 2-

So, the idea on writing this story came one fine day when I was browsing aimlessly on the internet -more specifically on Livejournal- and found out that a community is organizing a writing contest with the theme 'New Beginnings'.

While I'm not one on writing with deadline -tried before for Chapter 2 and failed brilliantly-, and the last day for submitting the entry is only about 1 freaking week from the time I got to know about it, to my horror, somehow, I WANT to participate, despite the strong protest from my consciousness at the time. I mean, that was a busy period; what with assignments and what-not, heck even mid-term was not far away! But my muse was hanging at the back of my head, and keeps saying 'Why not? Just do it!' and as reckless as I am with my poor time management skill, I opened the dreadful MS Word, ready to write.

But of course, enthusiasm does not mean I have any idea what to write at the first place. *gasp* Not to mention I'm bad at theme-related works, being random and all. So, one whole day is dedicated on finding idea -not the plot, that can be damned later- and I settled on AU (why, of course), a Samurai AU. Didn't saw that coming huh? :P

The thing is I just finished the anime 'Samurai Champloo' (damn awesome anime, might blog about it later, but damn there are TOO MANY anime to blog about~! Tsk.) before that and I'm really really liking one of the main character that I modeled him in my story! It's quite obvious if you look at it actually, so yeah~ there comes my samurai one-shot.

I admit I do know much on samurai, I've read quite a number a samurai-themed manga and watched the anime for all that matter, but there is a theme, and I'm lacking a plot, which always is the death of me in writing. So I looked for prompt, which comes in the form of the 100 fic challenge I sadistically participated in, and settled on no. 64, Balance, basically because it's character-centric duh. But wait.

Samurai, New Beginning, Balance. What kind of plot can I conjure from this?! Worse, when I realize it I have about 4 days left. And I don't even start anything, yet. And it's not like I don't have anything else to do to begin with. I'm on the verge of giving up when I decided to call my 'editor', which is actually of course, my imouto, Ainin. And this conversation comes up (I always insert our conversation for some unknown reason, lol).

Me: So there's a contest in Livejournal and I think of taking part but...
Ainin: I know! Saw it too~ wait you're taking part? Great!
Me: Wait, so you know? When?
Ainin: When they first opened it of course, I'm quite a lurker in LJ recently.
Me: And you don't even TELL ME?!
Ainin: You don't ask.

Trust her to make me go headdesk all over.

Me: Next time, just tell me dammit!
Ainin: Ok. That aside, what are you writing on? Tell me the spoiler yes!!
Me: Uh...that's the problem.
Ainin: What?
Me: I don't have a plot.
Ainin:................
Me: Hello? You there?
Ainin: The deadline's here, you know.
Me: Why do you think I'm calling you for?
Ainin: *sigh*
Me: My idea consist of the theme new beginning, of course, samurai AU, and prompt balance.
Ainin:.....WHAT.

Not a good sign. Definitely not.

Ainin: How are you going to combine all that?!
Me: Any idea?
Ainin: And how do you expect me to help you at the first place?
Me: Yah! You're my editor, think of something!
Ainin: Since when am I one?!

So we had a fight, that's normal.

Ainin: Take your time, it'll not be that hard~ Good luck!

Somehow it dawn on me that I don't have my song muse with me, which can explain my off feeling this whole time. Indeed, I just look around my playlist for more muse and voila! I found a plot. And it combines them perfectly in my head. Of course, I called my 'I'm-not-your-editor' Imouto.

Me: Found the plot.
Ainin: YES!! TELL ME ABOUT IT!

And I did.

Ainin: Go for it, unnie!!

Just so you know, unnie is Korean for older sister and imouto is Japanese for younger sister. She likes Korean more than Japanese language actually, something she shares with the rest of my sisters, thanks to all the drama on tv and K-Pop; while I'm more heavily influenced by anime, though I do have my fair share of K-Pop. So yeah, we quite a multi-language speaker to each other. LOL.

Now that I have the confidence to write all the bloody thing down -I guess Ainin will continue being my editor whether she like it or not, she had a knack for good stories IMO- I started writing and damn I was halfway through when I found myself thinking 'Ah, it shouldn't be like this, maybe this way is better...'

I had only 2 days left to go. And although the dateline is something based on London time and I actually have a day extra then the stated date due to GMT and all, I don't think I can afford the risk, the internet here is unpredictable after all. Still, I scrap the whole freaking thing and start it, all over again.

I had morning class the next day -8AM Statistics lecture for 2 hours + 1 hour tutorial = death of my brain- and my self-conscious constantly reminds me that, but my fingers cannot stop typing, my muse is running 200km/h and my whole body is shaking so much I feel like my head is spinning round and round.

By the end of it all, I end up typing for 11 pages of MS Word, far exceeding the usual 7 pages for one-shot habit and send it almost instantly. The wash of relief flood me instantly and I collapse on my bed, the clock on the sidebar shows 5AM. Heck I'd been typing the whole night away!

As much as I'll be glad to do so, I didn't skip the lecture that morning, which is quite a feat in itself. I have to admit though, that I'm practically dead by afternoon onwards, heh.

And so my imouto read the contest entry, and the result is positive from her, to my relief. After that was the mid-term, submit the assignments, and there's the 2-week mid-sem break along with Raya holiday, which totally drain me away, thus the lack of writing on my part.

I didn't won anything from the contest, but I'm happy I participated in it -it's my first time entering such a contest after all- and it's surely a great experience! It helps that this is my first time exploring this style of writing and I'm glad I'm able to pull it off! If there's other contest next time I'll make it a point to enter~! If there's opportunity, time, and idea/plot that is. =_=;

I'm actually thinking of ranting on anime too as there's lots of things going on as far as the fandom goes but this is getting too long and I better stop for now. Heh.

Anyway do read the story and tell me what do you think about it! ^^

~The-Finally-Done-With-The-Post-Heiji.

Music of the Day: Radwimps - Order Made

P/S: The song that influence the plot of The Sons of a Battlecry. Try search for the lyric, this is awesome!

OT: Is currently rediscovered the love that is Natsume Yuujinchou. Midorikawa Yuki-sensei is awesome!! ^^

Mr. Broken Heart

Ahh~ I'm updating my blog, again. After finishing the Durarara!! recommendation post of doom which set the most record in my blogging life so far (the longest post written in one time -it consist of TWO long posts-, the post that took the longest time to finish -I started on 28 and 29 and only able to post them on 2 July. Yeah, I know-, the post with the most pic-spam...) I don't think I'll update my blog until I'm back in KAL, but since I updated my Livejournal with new posts, I...can't ignore the urge to post it here...yeah, I know.

But then, this might be the last post before I go back to the la-la island a.k.a Labuan or to be more specific UMS-KAL as the new semester is going to start real soon. *sigh* I want to stay at home longer~

That aside, I've updated the last part of Chapter 1, part 8, and ahh~ it really brings back memories. I mean, I wrote them all on June-July 2009 a.k.a last year! It's been one year now and I still can't get Chapter 2 going...T_T I talked with my imouto Ainin a.k.a my personal editor (sort of) on the draft I had in my head on how it's going and the reaction is positive enough. Now I have some confidence in it might start writing slowly. I don't think I can afford to delay it any longer. Just her comment is "Totally Durarara!! influence there." And I was like "Uh, yeah." Yeah, the anime is too awesome it rulez~ I'm bias yeah XD.

I'll try my best. And Ainin, thanks a zillion for lending me your ear and hear me rambling like crazy, uh. You're awesome! Never stop commenting my story, okay! XD

I spent 2 months of holiday, yeah, but I only write one story. *gets bricked* It's not my fault I have no idea, ok! T_T What with writer's block and all...*sob* And I've posted it just now too, so no blaming me okay! Now that I've posted all of my completed story, it'll be hard to see my blog updated in the future (maybe) so I want to say I'm sorry in advance...*bows* I will write more! I do! Just, give me plot. Yeah. *stab self*

Enough rambling, this is the link.

Mr. Broken Heart

On the story, this is one of the story with the least dialogue ever. I wrote this with full enthusiasm and I let Ainin a.k.a the editor/commenter to read the half-written story. And the result is something like this.

Ainin: It's ok, just, uh.
Me: What?
Ainin: I don't know...
Me: Just tell, dammit!
Ainin: It's kind of boring...

I swear if this scene is in an anime, the character (me) already got arrows stab into the heart.

Me:...what. Because too much description?
Ainin: *nod*
Me: Great.

Cue big rock fall on the character's head.

Me: Do you read them all? Do you understand what it's about?
Ainin: Uh..just the first part...? It's getting quite...complicated...sorry~

That night, I edit more than 60% of the now-become-draft story, and start spamming my fb wall for a couple of days. When I start writing again, the muse is running 160km/s and I found myself cannot stop writing at all until I finish it completely. I have to admit I'm confident with how it goes but then, if Ainin said it's boring, again, I may be throwing myself into the sea or something.

Me:...so..how is it...?
Ainin: *smile*
Me: Uh-huh.
Ainin: This is Good!! I totally don't expect that. *thumbs-up*

Cue confetti and spotlight on the character.

To be frank, I don't know how I got that ending either, so it's a bonus somehow~

I gain enough confidence to start a new story right after but then, the last episode of Durarara!! came out and my mind totally took a 180 degree turn there. I spazzes over the anime like what and cannot stop fan-girling and when I come to my muse already pack up the bags and leave to a vacation in Ikebukuro. Yeah. And leaving me with no idea at all for a plot or whatever. *sigh*

Anyway, I rambles a lot for now and my inbox is piling up with mails and whatnot I might as well clear them up. Do read the story and tell me what do you think of it! ^^

Music of the Day: One Ok Rock -Liar

P/S: Might stop the recommendation a.k.a fan-girling of the song. Somehow not in the mood for it anymore. *gasp*

~The-stiff-shoulder-somehow-I-don't-even-know-why-it-happen-Heiji

Durarara!! The Characters

This post is focused on the characters of Durarara!! the anime. As much as I want to put them in a single post, I can't, due to the fact that they got too many characters, and it is impossible to talk on the story without knowing who's who, so~

The Characters.

Durarara!!

It's been awhile (a rather long while to be frank) since I wrote a post of recommendation here and since I'm so so so in love with this series (and just finished watching the whole 24-episode last night -when I'm typing this-) and in need of rambling (insert fangirl alert here) so here I am! The series in question (like, obviously) is Durarara!!



Originally a light novel series (which I'm now interested to read) written by Ryohgo Narita (of Baccano! fame, which I never get to read nor watch the anime, yet, but will do, maybe) and illustrations by Suzuhito Yasuda, Durarara!! (デュラララ!!, Dyurarara!!) is about a Dullahan working as an underworld courier in Ikebukuro, an internet-based anonymous gang called Dollars, and the chaos that unfolds around the most dangerous people in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. (Wikipedia)

A number of unusual people gather in Ikebukuro, Tokyo--- a youth who yearns for an un-mundane life, a hoodlum, a stalker denpa-girl, a young man who deals in information ‘for fun’, a black-market doctor, a high-schooler obsessed with magic, as well as a ‘headless rider’ riding a bike painted black. These unusual people begin a series of abnormal stories that never fail to create headaches. But, although their personalities are all twisted— they still talk about love. (Onemanga.com) -I did edit a little bit though, and have to admit this descriptions is my fav on Durarara!!-

Ryuugamine Mikado is a boy who longs for the exciting life of the big city. At the invitation of his childhood friend Masaomi, he transfers to a school in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Masaomi has warned him about people he doesn’t want to cross in the city: a champion fighter, an informant, and a mysterious gang called “Darazu.” (or simply, Dollars) Nervous from Masaomi’s stories, Mikado witnesses an urban legend on his first day in the city, the Headless Rider astride a black motorcycle. From then on, the existence of supernatural cases and a gang called the Yellow Turbans will rise to the surface, and Ikebukuro will pushed to the breaking point. (thatanimeblog.com)

Okay, end of boring formal introductions, let's get the dice rolling. Before that though, bear in mind that all the info's and whatnot below are simply the result of me fangirling over the series and MY complete opinion on it. Also, beware of bias alert, if you follow this blog enough I'm sure you understand what I mean~ XD

Oh! Did I mention that this anime is no doubt the BEST anime ever aired on 2010 (so far)? See? Told you I'm bias like that.

They also got the manga for this along with the anime but as the said manga is too slow on update I'm going to focus this post on the anime instead. Not like they got huge difference whatsoever. (I even take the description from the manga there, haven't I? lol.)

Info's mostly from Wikipedia (all-time-fav-info-website) and tvtropes.org (damn-awesome-site-with-cool-stuffs-and-tropes-I'm-stealing) and my take on the series mashed-up together to my liking. Pics are from snapshot of my own (finally know how to do it /facepalm), tvtropes.org, and Google. XD


The Story.

It's hard to be specific on what the story is all about (like for example Naruto-ninja, Bleach-shinigami etc.) because it got from supernatural characters (the Dullahan a.k.a headless fairy a.k.a the headless rider and a somewhat cursed living sword who loves, uh, human) to a crazy strong guy who goes around throwing the vendor machine as replacement of hello (you read that right, definitely not a typo on my part) to normal high school students (yup, definitely normal looking) to an underground doctor (no license, definitely) to a crazy information broker who loves the humanity and manipulate them (...what) to a stalker with a crush (omg) to a twisted siblings (they totally love the wrong things) to a crazy traffic police who might be a former gang biker (no kidding here) to a Russian selling sushi (yes, he even speaks Russian sometimes in the anime, don't ask me, I don't know Russian to save my life) to a gang with otakus (yes, again, no typo) to a lot more.

Tell me, what can I say then? =_=;

If you ask me to sum it all, then, is that all these people, they live in Ikebukuro. In one city. It's not about one main character's journey or whatsoever, it's about everyone. Each character have a role and as twisted as their life may be, they all connected and may give impact to other people's life, directly or vice-versa.

It's all over the place, basically. And the anime consists of 24 episodes, with 2 arc stories.

And they got one hell of a number of characters, mind you.


The Characters

As much as I want to put them in a single post, I can't, due to the fact that they got too many characters, and it is impossible to talk on the story without knowing who's who, so I put them in a separate post. Just click the link above. Sorry on that =_=;


The Art/Setting

The animation is produced by Brain Base, which I later found out also responsible on making Natsume Yujinchou, one of my favorite anime ever. The animation is beautiful, if not detailed. The buildings and everything really depicts the city. Heck, apparently it is based on real buildings in Ikebukuro! It is like I'm really walking down the streets of the city, seriously. Watch the videos below and be surprised!






The Music

Despite the fact that I'm quite open in music and can listen to mostly anything, I'm quite picky when it comes to anime songs, mostly because it will determine whether I'm going to skip them or just listen to them for the goddamn 1-2 minutes. Sometimes, the song is good but the sequences is not attractive enough, even if I freaking love the show. See, I'm that picky. So, when I say I LOVE LOVE LOVE all the 4 songs use for the OP and ED, it basically tells that the songs and the title sequences are simply BEYOND AWESOME. Heck, I even downloaded ALL the single for the anime and the Pv for the respected songs. You can't say I'm bias this time around, ok~

Not to mention the OP and ED sequences are simply awesome to boot. The scenes are connected to the next one as they introduce the loads of characters are really cool!! Too bad video streaming sites blocked the videos from YouTube (I do found but the quality is not that good and the words are mirrored, making the whole Hiragana and kanji look weird on my eyes xD Still can check them out though) or else I already post them here.

The first OP, Uragiri no Yuuyake (裏切りの夕焼, lit. "Sunset of Betrayal") by Theatre Brook can best be described by one word; IT ROCKED. The crazy fast beat really gives excitement and suits the show damn well. I don't know the band and it's hard to search infos on them but I even love the couple song in the single (I spazz about it on the last post maybe?) so definitely going to watch out their works in the future~ "Asahi wo noboru~ YEAH!!!"

The first ED, Trust Me by Matsushita Yuya a.k.a my new bias for J-artist is simply cool to the max. The tune is addicting, the vocal is soothing, and the R&B beat is GUH. I have it as my ringtone now. xD On the singer, well, I downloaded all his single and album and pv. Yeah~ that explains it. "Trust me trust me trust me YEAH!!"

The second OP, Complication (コンプリケイション) by Rookiez is Punk'd is kinda slower in beat compare to Uragiri no Yuuyake, but still damn addictive! It starts kind of slow and go rocking on chorus and makes you sing along (well, I did anyway). The band is also another unknown to me before and haven't quite listen to their other songs, but if it's like this one then I'm a fan, 'nuff said. "Whooooooaaa Oh Oh OH!!"

The last song, a.k.a the second ED, Butterfly by On/Off took the formula like Complication. It's kinda slow and go beating hard on chorus. Totally cool enough! The harmony of the duo compliments the song and gives a soothing feel~ People might recognize the group as the one singing the OP for the anime Vampire Knight before, and have to say while I'm not really fond of their song in that anime (I haven't even watch it duh) Butterfly really got me hooked. "Bokura wa jiyuu da~"

Just realize they don't have slow song as either OP or ED. But then I can't imagine having a ballad on a show full of badass characters anyway~ xD

EDIT: The Trailer

I found a video of the trailer of the anime in sub...thought I'll put it here~




Final Thoughts

This anime is not one that you can review after watching the first 3 episode or something (which might put it in the 'love it or hate it' kind of show to some). Watch at least 7-8 to get the idea of things, and I promise it'll be worth it. The many characters might gives you hell at first but their characters (in terms of physical attributes, that is) are really distinctive to one another so it should be no problem! All in all, this is a MUST watch, and I'll give it a full 10 for the fun and joyous ride. ^^

Let's hope they make a second season of this! At least there's news on DVD special episodes coming~ \o/

~The-accomplished-like-finally-Heiji