Category: Miscellaneous

Show new ED sequence ▼

Better late than never right? So oddly enough, Hyakko got new opening and ending sequences this week (episode nine), after only having a video collage of episode one clips for the opening up until now. The new ending sequence on the other hand is still a picture collage, but features newer and better artwork. Retaining the same opening song “Suppin Rock” 「スッピンロック」 by Ogawa Mana (小川 真奈) and ending song “Namida Namida Namida” 「涙 NAMIDA ナミダ」 by Hirano Aya (平野 綾), these new sequences are welcomed additions, but I find it really unusual to introduce them now when three-quarters of the series is already over. In any case, Hyakko features a wide-range of quirky and interesting characters, so if you haven’t checked it out and are looking for a light-hearted slice-of-life comedy this season, it’s a pretty good fit. Torako’s an absolute riot.

-divine
…felt the urge to say something about adding new OP/ED sequences this late in a series.

A video message from Miyano Mamoru popped up over at Nico Nico Douga (reposted above, with the original here), announcing the release of his second single, “…Kimi he” 「…君へ」. Mamoru then goes on to make a couple of personal announcements, with the first being that his 25 year old self is now married and the second being that he’s expecting a child with his new wife. In his nearly 15 minute long personal announcement full of drawn out emotional pauses, Mamoru is almost moved to tears on several occasions, which made the whole thing quite awkward for me to watch/listen to. This sentiment was further compounded when he revealed that he was diagnosed with the possibility of being infertile a little while ago. With Mamoru claiming that he absolutely loves children, this naturally came as a huge shock to him and also gave him doubts about being able to get married. As per his original announcement though, he was able to conceive a child after all — a miracle in his eyes. Evidently, this is a huge life-turning moment for Mamoru, enough so that he felt he owed it to his fans to make a formal announcement about it here and in written form as well.

With that said, he didn’t make mention of who his new wife is, but the fact that these two announcements come hand-in-hand made me question if the marriage came first or the pregnancy. Joking aside, Mamoru has shown a very emotional side of him that I had no idea about, in addition to revealing a lot of personal information (with the infertility taking tops in that regard). In my opinion, neither are easy things to tell the world when you consider how he’s putting himself out there and subject to public scrutiny. Infertility aside, I was under the impression that seiyuus (particularly female seiyuus) aren’t allowed to let their personal relationships slip into the limelight as it could be potentially bad PR. Perhaps marriages are seen differently, but a lot of fans still “cried” when Chiba Saeko announced that she got married. Luckily though, public reaction seems to be positive and supportive so far in Mamoru’s case, based on the Nico Nico Douga comments.

As many people are aware, Miyano Mamoru currently stars as Setsuna F. Seiei in Gundam 00 S2, Kiryuu Zero in Vampire Knight Guilty, Death the Kid in SOUL EATER, Fuwa Shou in Skip Beat!, and Kuro in KUROZUKA. His previous big roles include Yagami Light in Death Note and Suou Tamaki in Ouran High School Host Club. Despite his new outlook in life and how he seems intent on devoting it to his upcoming child, Mamoru tells everyone that he plans to continue doing his best in his roles as an actor. He’s become a huge name in the seiyuu world as of late (seen by his current starring roles), so there’s nothing left to do but wish him and his new family the best.

-divine
…learned that YouTube still has a 10 minute cap and wondering who Miyano Mamoru’s new wife is.

As some people may already be aware, YouTube quietly added a new “HD-like” streaming format some time ago that is much better than the “high quality” version that’s publicly available. Two days ago, they added their new widescreen player to the site, which makes excellent use of this new format. To help illustrate the improvement, please see the video of the Gundam 00 S2 opening sequence above. The quality pretty much speaks for itself, but notice how sharp the text is at fullscreen — it even looks crisp when blown up to 1920×1200. Now compare this to the “high quality” version that came out long ago of the same video (which some people have this new HD-like version confused as):
Show High Quality version ▼

Similar to how the “high quality” format can be viewed by appending “&fmt=18” to the end of any video URL, this new HD-like format can be viewed by appending “&fmt=22“. However, there are some nuances, which I’ve noticed in my preliminary testing of this higher resolution/bitrate version.

More after the jump…

As you know, Divine was a valuable contributor here at Random Curiosity, and since his departure Omni has been looking for someone to help out. I can only hope I’ll be of some service as a new team member here, and honestly I’m very much looking forward to working with all of you.

I’ve been a reader around here for a couple of years, and have been watching anime for much longer. Some of my first fan-subbed experiences from many years ago include timeless classics (Cowboy Bebop) as well as some things that were only magical the first time around (Love Hina). Since then I’ve seen a variety of shows from a variety of genres and tend to enjoy well produced, original, and creative stories the most. I can’t stand studios who can’t offer anything new, and I applaud those who go out of their way to be creative and make artistic advancements in the industry. Provided you have realistic expectations and an open mind, I find that most series can be enjoyed for what they succeed in, and forgiven for (a fraction of) their faults.

At this moment in time (in other words, subject to change, hopefully when you least expect it), some of my favorite anime includes: Ghost Hound, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, FLCL, and many others which I enjoy immensely but wouldn’t necessarily call a favorite. That is including, but not limited to: Black Lagoon, Ergo Proxy, Haruhi, Paranoia Agent, Dennou Coil, Natsume Yuujinchou, and a handful of others that I’m too embarrassed to mention here. I’m probably forgetting a few major series that I loved, and I certainly left out a lot of big names that I liked a lot but didn’t list here, but I hope you get a general picture of what I tend to enjoy the most.

This season I’ve been keeping up with far more series than usual. That list is almost guaranteed to shrink as the season continues, but I’m currently watching: Kannagi, Kuroshitsuji, Chaos;HEAd, Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae, Kurozuka, Kyou no Go no Ni, Michiko to Hatchin, Mouryou no Hako, Nodame Cantabile Paris-hen, Skip Beat!, Toradora!, and Vampire Knight Guilty. Some of these I only watch on TV for the sheer enjoyment, most I download and watch at my leisure. Obviously I cannot possibly write about all of these, nor would I want to (I probably won’t do Kurozuka, Mouryou, Michiko… and Skip Beat! has plenty of great bloggers already). But I am really excited about the prospect of writing about a few of them, so I hope you’ll indulge me as I take on a couple of these shows, as far as time allows. I’ll definitely be following Kuroshitsuji for starters, and hopefully Vampire Knight Guilty pretty soon as well.

Aside from anime, my other passions include language, which, combined with intense impatience allows me to watch most of my shows raw these days. I also keep up with a selection of manga, which delays the hunger. (Except those monthlies. If you think waiting a week is harsh…)

That’s about it as far as my general anime background is concerned. As far as my other personality quirks go, I’m sure you’ll discover them along the way.

Yoroshiku, ne~

-Trillian

Here’s something to try if you’re bored — just try to not get addicted in the process. You have been warned.

If haven’t gone off and started playing already, it’s a Flash game I stumbled upon tonight called “Typing Mania 4”. Now the only reason why it gets mentioned here is because it features a very nice assortment of anime songs, which will be the ONLY thing keeping you playing after awhile. For those of you with 100+ words-per-minute typing speeds, I wouldn’t get overconfident too quickly because most of the lyrics are in romaji (ローマ字) and there are quite a few quirks (mentioned below). There are some English songs as well though, so give ELISA’s “Euphoric field” from ef – a tale of memories. a try if you like.

Each song is ranked with a “Typing Level” ranging from 0 to 99. If you want to experience some level 99 insanity right away, give Lucky Star‘s “Motteke! Sailor Fuku” 「もってけ！セーラーふく」 a go (pictured above). Even eufonius’ “Reflectia” 「リフレクティア」 from true tears is pretty tough, and that’s ONLY a level 9 song. With that said, you might want to start off with something reasonable like Nakajima Megumi’s Aimo 「アイモ」 from Macross Frontier, so you don’t end up hating the game right away. Most of the time, you’ll probably be staring at your monitor in awe wondering how anyone’s ever supposed to play this properly, but as with Rock Band, you just know there are people out there who will go to lengths to master this kind of stuff.

Note: You can access more songs with the left and right arrow keys.

*UPDATED* Now if you’re actually serious about doing well in this game, there are some things to keep in mind, especially if you’re familiar with some Japanese. However, if you’re only looking at the letters and not the Japanese lyrics, then these probably won’t help much.
– The particle は has to be typed out as “ha” and not “wa”, which is an accepted romanization of it.
– The hiragana し is “si” rather than “shi”. You can type “shi”, but you’ll get a miss for the “h”.
– The hiragana つ is “tu” rather than “tsu”. You can type “tsu”, but you’ll get a miss for the “s”.
– The hirangan じ can be typed as “ji” or “zi”.
– The hiragana ふ can be typed as “hu” or “fu”.
– The hiragana しゃ, しゅ, しょ are spelled as “sya”, “syu”, “syo”, but you can use “sha”, “shu”, “sho”.
– The hiragana ちゃ, ちゅ, ちょ are spelled as “tya”, “tyu”, “tyo”, but you can use “cha”, “chu”, “cho”.
– The katakana シェ and チェ are spelled “sye” and “tye”, but you can use “she” and “che”.
– If the hiragana ん appears in the middle of a word, you can simply type “n” instead of “nn”.
– If a small っ appears at the end of a word to shorten the last vowel, you have to type “ltu”. e.g. ぎゅっ
– None of the Japanese lyrics have spaces.
– When spaces do appear, they’re displayed as underscores, but you can use Space.
– You do not need to capitalize English words.

Let the madness (and frustration) begin!