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ローゼンメイデン 
December 31, 2003 | 
12 Comments
Well, I supposed I'm a bit late to talk about this one since the manga came out on the 19th of this month. But it's a very interesting chapter that I think deserves the attention of other Fruits Basket fans. Those of you who have watched the anime know that the ending for that version ends rather abruptly because the manga version is not finished yet. Well, it's still not finished. We're up to chapter 86 at the moment which was released on Hana to Yume issue 2/2004. If you prefer to wait until the tankouban comes out, I think this particular chapter will be a part of tankouban vol.15 (only 13 tankoubans have been released thus far).
December 29, 2003 | 11 Comments
I have to say that I purchased the first DVD + box purely based on the fact that I like the illustration on the box and the DVD cover. Well, that'll teach me. I mean the show is not bad or anything like that but rather it's not the sort of story that seems to engage my attention. The show seems to be formatted on what I called "mission of the week" storyline, where the main hero gets to help a one-off character in an episode and then do the same thing all over again for another one-off character in another episode. As a result, little to no character development is given to the regulars, at least not much in these first four episodes. And in most cases, the character development is tied to the 'mission of the week' that the main characters are involved in.
December 27, 2003 | 3 Comments
No, I haven't turned this blog into a skin care product promo site. The screenshots are just the new teaser trailer to Resident Evil: Apocalypse. I like it when trailer makers go to the length of making a teaser trailer that is rather different from the usual Hollywood teaser trailer. In this case, the trailer looks more like one of those skin care products ad than a movie ad. It begins with the usual question of how ideal it would be if we can reverse the effects of age, stress, and sun. And now you can! With Regenerate. A product that actually brings dead cells back to life (no kidding). The announcer then says please consult your doctor before any treatment and that some side effects may occur :P.
I hope this movie will be as good as the first one. I mean the first one didn't have high calibre acting or an extraordinary storyline. But it wasn't bad either and it was definitely the best example of film that is made out of video game. I was expecting to see a bad, boring, or cheesy flicks like Tomb Raider or Street Fighter but instead got a rather stylish thriller. That's why I hope the second one will do a good job as the first one. Especially since this time the film will merge the film's storyline and characters with the video game's storyline and characters (I think Jill is the one that has been mentioned thus far).
December 26, 2003 | 0 Comments
Well, that was a good end to the trilogy. Everything seems to be wrapped up nicely and the ending is quite good in that bitter-sweet kind of way. Still, since I've never read the book beforehand, I don't know if it actually follows the original story faithfully or not. For example, towards the end, I get the impression that Eowyn seems to have transferred her crush on Aragorn and moves on to be with Faramir. But it happens all of a sudden at the end of the film that I get the feeling that there may be an additional scene or two in the original book, which shows how the two get closer to one another. I supposed this is the sort of scenes that will show up on the Special Edition of the DVD. Or at least I hope so because I find Eowyn and Faramir to be two of the most interesting characters in the film.
December 25, 2003 | 5 Comments
I finally get to see this infamous Kinji Fukasaku's film last night. After much confusion as to which version I should get, I ended up purchasing the Korean Special Edition version since I can't seem to find an e-tailer that still has a copy of the R2 UK version. And this Korean version turns out to be quite a nice release with only a couple of minor deficiencies. I have to agree with the other fans of this film that the English subtitle on this version is lousy. I mean I can still guess what the subtitle actually means 90% of the time. However, there are times when I got confused because the subtitle seems to contradict the earlier events. Having said that, the film transfer is sharp and clean and the menu looks really nice and stylish. All in all, this would have been a perfect release if it wasn't marred by the lousy translation (or lack thereof in the case of the extra disc) and the lack of the extras that were included in the R2 version (metal tin case, collectible film strip, etc).
December 24, 2003 | 0 Comments
In the spirit of giving (and receiving), this is for those of you who've come all the way to this blog looking for:
Siren PS2/Siren official trailer
Well, there is this nice fanpage which contains the trailer, some short clips of the game, as well as scans of the Japanese PS2 covers and the booklet.
Ken Marinaris pictures/Anubis artworks
For those people out there who wants to see more of Ms.Marinaris as well as other Anubis artworks, I'd recommend the Visualworks of Anubis. It may not have many color illustrations. But if you generally like Anubis or Tsubasa Masao's artworks, it's worth checking. There's also this nicely designed Anubis site that you may want to visit.
December 22, 2003 | 2 Comments
When I saw the first three episodes of this series, I said that that this series needs to improve its pacing. Imagine my surprise to find out that not only episode 4-6 do exactly that, they also unleashed many interesting questions, mysteries, and backstories on top of it. On top of that, these episodes managed to make the characters even more sympathetic. I'm also glad to find that the attitudes, intentions, and allegiances of some of the characters turn out to be quite different than what I previously thought. Or rather, the attitudes and intentions of the characters changes as the series progresses.
December 21, 2003 | 0 Comments
Sony has finally decided to release the Spiderman 2 teaser trailer in the Quicktime format. Most of you have probably seen it when it was released a couple of days ago by Yahoo.com in a streaming Shockwave Flash format. But I really hate that version since the streaming always got interrupted from time to time. And I was actually using an ADSL line. Thank God they wise up and decided to present it in Quicktime format. They should have done it like this right from the start.
As for the trailers itself, it looks okay. Nothing much to be seen. MJ is still in love with Parker while Harry seems to want to avenge his father's death. Doctor Octopus is clearly the main enemy though. I have to say that I am not a loyal Spiderman comic book reader so while I'm aware of certain characters' existence within the series, I often don't know their relationship with one another. For example, I've heard that in the comic, Harry is supposed to become the second Green Goblin but I have no idea how that will happen.
December 18, 2003 | 0 Comments
Well, it looks like SquareEnix PR machine is busy promoting the heck out of Final Fantasy XII. They have finally opened the Official Site complete with pictures of the two main characters, Vaan and Ashee, as well as some screenshot of the game CGI scenes and in-game sequences. And if you're still not satisfied with what they have, there's always IGN FF12 screenshots gallery.
There are also Interviews with the creators of the game located on Game Informer Site. And last but not least, you can see the 2 new characters called Fran and Balflear. Both characters were featured on an advert inside the Japanese Weekly Jump magazine vol.3 (15th January 2004 issue - Japanese magazines are often released one month ahead of their listed release date), which came out late last week.
December 16, 2003 | 3 Comments
Even though I already got Haibane Renmei Vol.1 DVD since a month ago, it's not until now that I got the chance to see it. I wish I had seen it sooner since this turns out to be a very interesting series. Created by the famous illustrator/character designer, Yoshitase Abe (of Serial Experiments Lain and NieA_7 fame), Haibane Renmei is a story about a group of Angel-like creature called 'Haibane', who lives within a town named Glie. In general, while the series maintains a calm pretense on its surface, beneath it there's an air of mystery that can make the viewer feels unease.
December 14, 2003 | 5 Comments
Uhm, it looks like I got suckered into the X-mas buying mentality. I went to my local Kinokuniya bookstore to see if they have the bilingual version of Fruits Basket (I know Tokyopop is going to bring the English language version next year in February but still, I was curious of this bilingual version). But when I couldn't find it, I instead ended up buying the Hardcover Edition of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Vol.2. But hey, I got a great excuse for it, I was pressured by all of the X-mas buying mentality (yeah, that's a good one!) and the artworks inside the book are worth the price tags (around $18 US Dollar - you can probably get it cheaper online).
I finally got the chance to watch this show after hearing so many good recommendations about it. The show does look promising although the early episodes seem to be rather slow in its execution. Thankfully, the show is full of interesting characters and their interactions with one another has thus far been very entertaining. Before I talk about the plot in great detail, however, I better cut this entry to avoid spoiling people who want to watch this show without prior knowledge of the story.
December 5, 2003 | 10 Comments
It looks like CLAMP is still on hiatus when it comes to writing fresh new chapter of X manga. It's been 6 months since the series was last seen inside ASUKA magazine. So now I am a bit worried because the manga have been running for 10+ years, and yet, there is no end in sight. Meanwhile, the film and the TV series versions have been concluded a couple of years ago. I hope CLAMP have a plan to finish the story properly and not just leave it in its current state for a long time. Especially since the last chapter of the manga ends in a cliffhanger.
X Chapter 20
I hate being sick. There's nothing I can do but laying around and watch some crappy TV shows. So I thought I'll cheer myself up by playing this game I just rent called Animal Crossing (GC). At a first glance, it looks a lot like Harvest Moon, this farming RPG that I enjoy quite a bit which is why I rented the game to begin with. But as I was playing it, I started to wonder if I was wrong after all.
