Wow, that was a long time

4/25/06 was the date of my last entry, so that means I have about 420 days worth of life to recap. Let's see if I can do it in under five sentences:

--Came back to the warm weather of So. CA
--Worked some small jobs, eventually leading to a medium-size temporary one at a legal firm doing paralegal work (while doing freelance pieces for 1up.com and gamebrink.com)
--Explored the wild side of E3 as an official media journalist for 1up.com
(Picture: Me, some awesome friendly dudes from 1up, and Atlus's Kazuma Kaneko [2nd to last guy on right])

--Ate lots of good food you just can't get in Japan, missed a lot of good food you just can't get in the US
--Subtitled the final 30 episodes (out of 50) of the best TV show ever made: Eureka Seven for the good of the public.

Now I can actually restart my blog again without it confusingly jumping from the cold depths of Aomori Japan to the OMG IT IS HOT TODAY Southern California!

Oh and a lot of the old picture links have died because I had to delete stuff off my photobucket account many months back and I've been too lazy to re-up the correct pictures (if I even still have them ^^;). Might be good weekend project when I get some time.

Back...sorta

See the animal in it's cage that you built,
Are you sure which side you're on?
Better not look too closely in the end,
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the saftey of the life you have built,
Everything where it belongs.
Feel the hollowness inside of your home,
and it's all...right where it belongs.

What if everything around you...isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know...is an elaborate dream?
If you look at your reflection...is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks...
Would you find yourself...find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the world's inside of your head?
Just creations of your own?
The devils and your gods all the living and the dead,
And you really are alone.
You can live in this illusion,
You can choose to believe.
You keep looking but you can't find the words,
Now you're hiding in a dream.

What if everything around you...isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know...is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection...is that all you want to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself...find yourself afraid to see?

--"Right Where it Belongs" from Nine Inch Nails' "With Teeth".

Well, the winter has ended (I think) and the spring starts next week or so when the cherry blossoms in Hirosaki bloom. So right now both the season and the life of JETs are in a transitional period. School has started but because of mandatory introduction stuff there aren't too many classes at the moment. So while it's nice to be teaching again there's also a lot of boredom afloat at the work place.

Wrote a review for Atlus' Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner 2. A game that's taught me a decent bit about buddhism and provided me with one of the most interesting stories that I'll remember for a long long time.


Mt. Iwake during the final months of winter.

Updates coming eventually

Wow, it's a been a while since I posted anything. Guess I have the ever snowing winter to blame for my lack of time recently.

Anyhow not re-contracting, moving to Tokyo instead. I'll write more in a few days I guess.

時代の流れに、我らしか漂わない

"In the current of an era, we can only drift along..."

Seems kinda of fitting for both the current political/world view, and the life of a JET ^^; With time comes change.

The long time avatar, DJPANDA (courtesy of Jungle Wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu)

has been retired and replaced with DJNEKO (courtesy of Moon Phase)


Another sweeping change is that I'm back in school again! Though this time from the teacher's point of view. I'm enjoying the start of up this quarter quite a bit as unlike my first quarter I actually no what's going on ;) Even the weather has been nice lately with sunny skies clearing away the snow a tiny tiny bit.

So as the invitation to stay another year here hangs around my neck, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my future. But since I'm not sure where I stand on that yet, I'll just write up a bit about what's new and good in entertainment over the last month:

Films:

Haven't been to the theaters much. But I did manage to catch the limited showing of 雲のむこう、約束の場所　(Kumo no mukou, yaksoku no basho -The place promised in our early days-). The first full-length film from the one man animator Makoto Shinkai who made a name for himself with 星の声 (Hoshi no koe, voices of a distant star). Unlike Hoshi no Koe which was animated entirely by Shinkai (with a runtime of 30mins), this time Shinkai enlisted in staff members and spent 2-3 years to create a full 1:30min feature film. Like Hoshi no Koe, the art design and backgrounds are gorgeous and Shinkai's use of CG effects to work around a low budget are excellent. The voice acting is pretty good, though the use of some big name voice actors is questionable since it kinda kills the low-budget art house feel. The music done once again by his friend Tenmon is pleasant sounding. Yet overall the movie is a lot weaker than Hoshi no Koe or Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko (his other 5 min short film). The reason is simply that while being an excellent animator, his writing skills are at the level of a high school kid from the poetry club. While this works for short films (Hoshi no Koe took the idea of cell-phone e-mails in future space travel and the time-effect that distance brings), when trying to go for 2 hour films it has problems. Shinkai loves two things: Poetry & Hard-core sci-fi. So the plot comes off as a simplistic yet overly-explained (with all kinds of military/science scenes) story spotted about with random poetic breaks. Still an enjoyable film, but I can't say I didn't come away slightly disappointed. Especially as the trailer for the film was utterly fantastic :\ 3.25/4


In Kung Fu Hustle, the new film by Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, God of Cookery, etc...), Chow once again plays the lead character in this action/comedy. Basically it was a good film with great cinematography, awesome action (though Ong Bak this is not), and some nice parodies. Unlike a lot of his other films that are based around bizarre off the wall humor, KFH relies more on parodies of everything from Gangs of New York to Dragonball. Personally I like his goofier stuff better but KFH was still worth watching even at 1000yen prices. 3/4


Checked out the live-action version of Cutie Honey directed by Evangelion creator/director Hideaki Anno. Anno has shown in his other dips into live-action that he is a very talented and artistic individual. So I was looking forward to what he would do with an anime->live-action film. Unfortunately the answer is "not much". While there are some nice moments from a visual standpoint, and the cinematography is rock solid, the main actress is the worst actress I've seen in film and quite possible the most annoying person ever. Besides that the film is basically just a theatrical ultraman type movie with people in rubber suits fighting. It's very tongue in cheek, and quite funny at times but in the end it's a very forgettable music. PS. The remixes of the main song do rock though ;P 2.5/4


Sekai no chushin de ai wo sakebu was the big Japanese film of 2004. When I first got here in July I noticed posters everywhere, in the winter theaters were doing special 2nd showings of it around here and, As the dvd release grew near I saw endless commercials on tv. So since the Japanese movie-goers usually have at least decent taste and the standard edition of the dvd was cheap, I decided to check it out. Hmmm...it was ok I guess. There wasn't really much that stuck out about the film. It was just your typical depressing "aware" style Japanese melo-drama. Nothing was really bad about it, but nothing was really great either (well I guess the main actress was pretty good). A decent watch 3/4.

Books:
Yep, would you believe it!? I'm actually reading :D

Miyabe Miyuki, a popular Japanese writer, was greatly moved by the 2001 PS2 game ICO (viewed by many as the greatest artistic achievement in the realm of games). So much, that he decided he wanted to flesh out the little bits of story in the game into a full novel, and thus the 600 page epic novel ICO -Castle in the Mist- was born. As a huge fan of the game I decided to pick up the book when I first arrived in Japan only to start reading it recently. I'm about 100 pages in at the moment and so far it reads quite nicely. The descriptive yet kinda of floaty and vague imagery of it mixed with the slower more relaxed pacing gives it a feel that matches the game quite well. At 97 pages in, the book is just getting to the opening of the game so it'll be interesting how it handles the actual game puzzle aspect of exploring the castle in literature form.

entry 1 - end, turn to entry 2

生き残った者が跡を継ぐ 生き残ったものがボスの称号を受け継ぐ

"The one that remains will follow in the steps. The one that remains will inherit the title of 'Boss'"

Games:




It arrived, it was finished twice, it was brilliant. Really there's so much that could be said about Hideo Kojima's latest masterpiece Metal Gear Solid 3 that I won't bother trying to start. While it was different than I expected, on my 2nd playthrough especially when I view it as what it actually is I came away more impressed than probably any game has left me since MGS2. Even the excellent Half-life 2 just can't stand up to the perfection of MGS3. I also read the 400 page collection of essays/interviews book that came with the LE and that only enriched my understanding and respect for how Kojima incorperated the issues that encompassed the cold war into his own spy story. 10/10


On a different Metal Gear related note. I put a lot of time into the PSP Metal Gear Acid (According to Kojima, Acid refers to melting away the fixed perceptions of the Metal Gear series). Though the game is done by a completely different staff than the MGS games and is now a turn-based, card-based, strategy rpg...it still retains the MGS feel quite well. The game is all about laying traps and sneaking around enemies and is a very fun cat & mouse chase done through a chess match style. The story is very MGish and is a very interesting serious mystery thriller. Change can sometimes be a good thing :) Not finished but so far a 8.5/10


Donkey Konga: Jungle Beat is an AWESOME AWESOME game. The game is an old school platformer (think Sonic 2 mixed with Super Mario World) that replaces using a controller and is instead controlled through the actions of a pair of drums (left drum, right drum, both drums, clap). Despite the unorthodox control scheme, it actually works like a charm! Within minutes the controls feel natural and the speed and level of the design is just fantastic. Consisting of 12 worlds (2 levels + boss) off the bat, and 6 hidden worlds (unlocking through getting high scores on levels) gives the game a good length with lots of replayability. One of the best platformers in ages and just a AAA game. 9.5/10


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Gran Turismo 4 is same old Gran Turismo but with a really nice new physics engine that gives the cars an incredibly close-to-life feeling. With 50 tracks and 650 cars there's a lot of driving to be had when I get the need to drive on something that's not ice. The Logitech GT Force Pro wheel is a huge step forward as it's the first console wheel that allows both 900 degree rotation and TRUE FORCE FEEBACK. This really can't be stated enough, TFF is the coolest thing for racing games. Based on the amount of g-force hitting your car at any given time the wheel reacts as it would in real life. Just like in real life when you're on a bumpy road and you have to hang on to the wheel as it jitters around this does the same thing. In fact driving on Ice tracks in the game with an Impreza feels frighteningly similar to what I experience each day here in my Impreza. Hell, I'm even learning things about when to downshift/brake/accellerate on ice and dirt. The wheel and it's TFF will also be supported in the upcoming Enthusia racing by Konami which is going to be the first game to have a CLUTCH! It's too bad there's no wheel out there with an actual clutch pedal...yet :P 9/10


What I'm currently playing at the moment. Tales of Rebirth is the 3rd Tales of... game this console generation and like Tales of Destiny II it's pretty much an all 2D rpg. The Tales of... series made the transition to 3D with excellent results in the GC Tales of Symphonia, so it feels a little archiac going back to the 2D realm. That being said the battle system is still fun as always and the story is still dumb as always :\ While not one of the best rpgs I've played it's still fun and will keep me busy until the 27th when Resident Evil 4, Digital Devil Saga 2, Radiata Stories, and A.C.E. arrive. (Another Century's Episode. Super Robot Wars Banpresto teams up with Armored Core developer From Soft to make a crossover Super Robot 3d action game).

好きか嫌いか。。。そのどちらかでないといけないのか？

Speaking of music, I've been listening to the new unlabeled Beck album and wow, really impressive. Pairing back together with the Dust Bros. has given it an Odelay 2-ish vibe. I'm hearing these tracks aren't even the final mixes and for just early works they are already fantastic. Can't wait for the full album in March.

Anime:

Just finished the 2nd and final season of Otogizoushi and boy was it terrible. Production IG did a great job at taking a very good Heian-era story and turning it into the world's most boring tale of reincarnation ever. I find it hard to believe the writers between the 2 seasons were actually one and the same. Season 2 was just so so stupid and boring...ugh. I'm just going to pretend there was ever a 2nd season.


Soukyuu no Fafner, a show that while not a ground-breaking show had great production values with a powerful and well-composed soundtrack and pretty good voice acting. The story was a bit weak and the series was mainly just an Evangelion rip-off...but the show was never 'bad' persay, and from a directorial point it was always a pleasure to watch so I guess I'd just call it popcorn entertainment.


On a more pleasant subject, Mai-Hime has gone into high gear as it gets a little past the half-way point. The show is Sunrise's big budget anime for at least 1/2 of 2005 and it shows. The quality of the animation is incredible and the action direction is handled with style. Tanaguchi Goro (Mugen no Ryvius, S.cry.ed, Planetes) is a "creative producer" on Mai-hime and it's really starting to show with how the series handles intense build-ups and just plain awesome pay-offs. With the cool GaoGaiGar-ish mecha designs, this is basically similar to S.cry.ed with girl characters and a little less badass-ness. The music by Yuki Kajiura fits very nicely with the high-budget everything else. Depending on where the show goes at this point, it could be one of the big shows of 2005.


So since Gundam SEED Destiny has managed to be not only the worst Gundam show ever, but even just one of the worst anime series in a while (doesn't look like it's getting better either. "Let's just fix the show by giving the main character a black version of Freedom" @_@)...I've finally got around to watching 1985 classic Zeta Gundam:

...and I'll be darned if it isn't as good as everyone's been saying. The 50ep epic is known by most Gundam fans as the best Gundam series to date. So far 1/5th in, I don't know if I can agree with that, but I can acknowledge that the series is damn good. Though my favorite mecha designs are from the 0083 OAV, the designs here are pretty solid in themselves. Can't wait to watch more :D

More snow

Two weeks in Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka was a nice time to relax...as is anytime you are not in Aomori ^^; Here's a rundown of the trip:

Akihabara:

Many trips were made to my favorite street in the world :D


My brother as he snaps a shot at the National Museum in Tokyo. Was a pretty nice museum though the focus was pretty broad and there wasn't too much that interested me (Heian era fan personally).


Our trip to the Palette Town of Odaiba! They had an interesting history of cars showcase museum at one corner which was a bit odd (50/60's american tv show footage running on screens behind the cars), but they did have a Dolorian! They also had a mall that was basically stolen from Caesar's Palace complete with the fake sky.


Located near the mall of the future was the station of the future. I think they're still working on getting the tech to live up to the name.


Cool store in Osaka. Otherwise I found Denden town to be pretty tiny compared to the massive Akihabara. Also checked out the Universal City Walk while in Osaka but the Wolfgang Puck's pizza was sadly still Japanese pizza ;_;


Some people will get this ;)


Asakusa during first snow in Tokyo! Looks a lot nicer with snow, though it was a bit cold. See I had thought it would be WARM in Tokyo compared to Aomori so I packed warm stuff...yet the snow followed me there >_<


Asakusa on New Years day. People lining up for Hatsumoude or first shrine visit of the year. Good weather.


"evacuation field" in Ueno...odd but pleasant.


This was standing outside the western art museum in Ueno.

and then I returned to the snow land of Aomori. Lately it's been snowing non-stop and the wind is pretty strong. Been going out once a day to knock the snow hanging off the roof down and dig out my doorway. At first dealing with that and digging out my car at the school daily was a bit daunting. But I've been improving my shovel skills and shoveling is getting fun! Only problem now is the wind which keeps changing directions while I'm shoveling snow off the roof, so the snow always seems to fall down into my face >_<

A normal street corner around here.


My car about 24 hours since last drive/cleaning.

20mins later, my car after shoveling out and cleaning. Now in drivable form!



The mall at night in the snow. That's not gas in the picture it's the damn snow flying around with the wind >_<


What I see doing the 15 min walk back from the school to my house each night. EVIL WIND. Seriously I like the snow but the wind is the worst enemy I have faced in my life.


My house after 30 mins of digging and knocking snow off the roof. The snow on the side has almost overtaken the fence around the yard. Can't even fit through the doorway as of today, so it's up and over the fence each day. Maybe I should just knock the fence down...hmmm..... ;)

Short delay

Had a good winter vaction in Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka with my brother. I'll have pictures up later, but I've been too worn out at home from shoveling and walking to really do much at the house besides lie down and watch movies in the evening. Expect a long real update this weekend.

snow