ジュンの絵描きブログ

I was at Causeway Point yesterday and happened to stumble upon YUI's latest album, so I decided to purchase it because shes a fantastic singer and yet I do not own any of her merchandise. But as I was picking up the CD, I saw from the corner of my eye the kanji for "Nakagawa Shoko" peeking out behind some other CDs. So I bought that as well. I am now the proud owner of the CDs of 2 really beautiful and talented singers whose songs I have been following for some time, yay.


The 2 albums in question.


Shoko-tan! The little mario-like sequence at the bottom is actually from one of the videos.
Isn't she adorable?


I finally own a YUI album. That piece of paper on the bottom is actually a sticker.
I sure ain't sticking that on my laptop.
Truth to be told I've never listened to these 2 albums before, so it gave me the opportunity to rip some high quality music into my player. I spent some time at night listening to them and they were well worth the money. Not to mention how both of them came with DVDs that included PVs and "making of" videos.

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:

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.

Its sad that for a sketching blog I haven't had a single sketching entry. And this entry isn't one either.

But anyway, for an "Introduction to computing" module, we had to design a website and discuss an IT phenomenon of choice. My group and I decided to do one on blogging. I found it pretty amazing that we managed to gather material and completed the site within a day.

Heres the site, coded in notepad by me (no gay dreamweaver or frontpage nonsense) with most of the graphics (minus the splash page) done by Ming Boon, and the information compiled by Chun Hoe, Stephanie, and Dylan.

Last weekend was awesome. I had the rare chance to spend 2 days with a couple of Japanese people, 池田遼平 ("Ryohei") and 正敏原 ("Masa") and got to:

a) Practice my conversational skills in a foreign language
b) See Singapore through foreign eyes
c) Have fun.

On Saturday, we spent a whole day at Sentosa. They asked if I was hungry when we were at the station and I answered "no", and we proceeded to Sentosa Island. Upon reaching the island, I realised that they were asking me that question because they themselves were hungry and were too polite to have said so. We spent an hour or so looking for a place to have a meal and ended up having subway. Turns out the Japanese people like Meatball Marinara. I also discovered how much Japanese students like to smoke, and that they can eat phenomenally quickly.

We headed down to the Luge right after the meal (a go kart ride down a hill), and Ryohei beat us all in a race by a wide margin. I expected to puke after having such a heavy meal and going for such an intense ride, but thankfully that did not happen. The ride downhill brought us to the beach area and we settled for some beer, which was incidentally the first time I drank any alcohol at daytime. The beach we were at incidentally had almost no Asians whatsoever and we spent our time enjoying the panorama of western girls.


Ryohei (left) and Masa (Right). Masa looks surprisingly like the Yakuza guy by the same name in Seto no Hanayome.


Cheers!

After the beer and some swimming (For Ryohei only. Masa and I forgot to bring our swimwear and resigned ourselves to merely dipping our feet in the water.), we went to the "4D Magic" attraction.


Ryohei commented that we looked like characters from some futuristic anime.

I must say that the attraction was pretty good, even though the price was really steep ($16 for a ten minute show). The 3D effects were really well done and I caught sight of some ladies putting their hands in front of them when 3D bees were flying towards us. The 3D effect was enhanced by the use of wind to simulate windy scenes (such as when the ship was moving), little gusts of wind around your legs to simulate little critters running around on the floor and brushing against your legs, and splashes of water in your face where appropriate. I thought that it wasn't all that realistic, but it was pretty novel and fun, though I think people going for the 2nd time would have gotten quite sick of it.

Cutting away the filler time where we wandered aimlessly around Sentosa, we decided to stop at the Butterfly Park next because Ryohei was interested in it. I shall cut any long narrative of the experience and throw in a bunch of pictures instead:


Parrot and me = BFF.


Ryohei and his little lover who pissed on him. thankfully it wasn't sitting on his head at that time.








甲狩りじゃ！

We went back on the cable car after that and had dinner at harbor front, feeling exhausted and hungry. I sure hope that they liked Sentosa.


Parting view of Sentosa. I did not notice how grand the construction works looked until they went "すげえ！すげえな！"


On Sunday, I went down to Waseda Senior Highschool for their yearly school festival. This year's theme was "Run So High". Don't ask me what its supposed to mean, Engrish has never been my forte. Also, I have no idea how "星蘭祭" translates to "Run So High". I went with a couple of friends from school, but spent quite some time looking forRyohei and Masa so that I could gt rid of the bulky NUS laptop bag that Ryohei wanted, which was impeding my enjoyment of the event. I felt guilty after passing on the bag to him as he had his luggage with him. Anyway, pictures again:


Wagashi set. It was delicious, and the waitresses at the "cafe" were cute.


Event was crowded as hell. Most of the games were fun, but queueing up just to play something for a few seconds really irked me.


Calligraphy room. Don't ask me what this picture is for.

After the School Festival, I went home and slept off some of the exhaustion and headed down for Karaoke@Cashstudios with the two Japanese friends and another friend of mine. Turns out that Japanese guys frequent karaoke like 2-3 times a week when they were in highschool. Ryohei could sing like a pop star and had a strong voice, while Masa could reach impossibly high notes and could sing chinese songs better than I could. Fun session.





Thats about it. We finished the Karoke session and had dinner at Food Republic, where I was shocked at the $7 I had to pay for a plate of char siew + roast duck rice. I was also surprised at how much Ryohei and Masa loved Century Egg, being their first time and all. I wanted to have a good laugh by letting them try it but turned out I was the only one there who did not like Century Egg.

After dinner, Ryohei suggested getting a drink. We went to a nearby 7-11 and bought 4 large cans of Tiger beer, and settled at a Haagen Daz to drink, but was chased out by the stall owner who told us it was illegal. So we adjourned to the stairway infront of Forum and drank to our hearts content. My wimpy friend didn't drink.


The delinquents@Orchard Road.

Poor Ryohei had to spend the night at Changi Airport from 12-5am. I was hoping that he didn't fall asleep and miss his flight.