ジュンの絵描きブログ

Busy with school work, hence the lack of any recent blog entries. But I did manage to take some time to catch 20th Century Boys today, and I must say that it blew me off my feet.

In a nutshell, the movie talks about a book of prophecies written by a group of boys as a childhood game. In the book, prophecies were made about how the world will end. The movie focuses on the boys as adults and suddenly realising that a series of events related to a cult led by this guy called "Friend" (友達) is causing those prophecies to come true. It was also prophecised that they will be the ones to save the world, and thats what they do - A motley crew of a convenience shop owner, a photocopy machine salesman, a stationery shop owner and so on.

I must say that the thing that struck me most was how smooth the story progressed, even with the frequent flashbacks to what they did as kids. Being over 2 hours long, it also gave off a sense of being very epic. The audience is always kept in a sense of anticipation as twist after twist reveals themselves, usually in a suspenseful manner with appropriate music.

However, I was really disappointed with the ending, and the way they did their special effects (read: explosions). I felt that it was really rushed towards the end but I guess this was inevitable considering the amount of stuff they had to pack into one movie without making fans feel annoyed at a feeling of incompleteness (like what Red Wall did). It ended appropriately at least on a not-so-cliffhanger that gives us a teaser of what to expect in the next installment.

All in all, I have no idea how people can say that this movie "sucks" (a lot of people do, citing a confusing plot, or even worse, a boring one). It does not. You just have to go into the cinema prepared to devote your full attention to what is happening or else you will be lost. You'd also have to have an appreciation of a good storyline and not merely looking for action because acton is something that will not happen very frequently in this movie. Having said that, the movie is far from being a bore-fest - It is lively and moves quickly.

Not a very good review, but I'm writing this before going to sleep. Heres hoping that more people will catch this excellent movie and enjoy it. As for me, I'm heading down to the nearest manga site to read this series.

And finally, a trailer to pique your interest:

Haven't been posting any sketches lately partly because of school work, but primarily because I was working on completing a submission for Kaleidoscope 2008. I'm not really happy with this entry (I wanted to draw something with more detail and more japanese) but I have no time to really work on a well-drawn entry, so here it is.

Headphones based on the pair of Audio Technica ATH-FC5 that I acquired recently.

The US senate had just passed the bill to use 700 billion to bail out the nation. Seriously, why the hell did they take so long to do that? Just a few days ago the vote to pass the bill to save the nation and probably the economies of the world FAILED, citing reasons such as being too much of a drain on federal revenue and ideological reasons. What a load of hogswash.

I admit that I'm not the most well-informed person out there and neither do I know what is really happening, but from a lay perspective this is idiocy. If the Senate vote had failed, a whole bunch of people in the world are gonna suffer from poverty and then what? The Republicans can just tell themselves that they did what they believed in? Do they think that they are God?

Anti American stance has now deepened.

Went to cashstudios again today with the otaku bunch! I think my singing endurance is improving by leaps and bounds, voice still ok after a 6 hour session. It used to die after 2 hours or so. I think that having a louder mic helps loads.

No sketches today as I was out the whole day. Well, actually I did sketch something, but unless Zi Rong is willing to scan it in for me from his notebook I don't think I can post it.