Better late than never.
I've been quite busy these past months, so unfortunately I haven't had enough time to update until now. Still, better late than never, right? Anyway, I'll try to summarize recent events as I remember them.
But, before I do anything else, I'd like to wish happy birthday to Raist and valentine4ever. I hope both of you are having a good time. And congrats to Nic, too. Whoa, I've really missed a lot while I've been away! I hope everyone else has been alright as well.
So, back to the story. In late April our choir had the spring concert. For some lame reason a lot of people from our choir had dropped off, so we ended up having only like 15 people or so in the actual concert. I'm glad that the singers were divided evenly so that we had about as many tenors, bass, altos and sopranos so that the choir was balanced well.
We sang a bunch of different songs, ranging from Kodaly's Hungarian stuff to Finnish folk songs (with some Italian, French, English, Latin and Spanish songs in between), and we also had some special songs for just the girls and just the boys. The one song that really made the audience cheer was the "drinking song" which we guys sang. Basically the song's part of Purcell's "King Arthur" libretto (we only performed parts of the King Arthur stuff, because the whole stuff is too long and would've taken away the other songs), and the song has quite a catchy melody.
It's a great drinking song, and we staged it so that we kind of made ourselves look like we were drunk by opening some buttons of our suits etc.(and actually some of the guys were drunk when we got to the point to sing the song xD), and we also had big beer mugs and drank from them whenever the song had interludes by piano. Some of the guys really had beer in those mugs, but I and a few others had just water. The audience was roaring with laughter, because they weren't expecting this kind of song after all the serious songs (I wonder what they might've thought if they'd known that some of us really were drunk xD), and they really enjoyed the performance.
The lyrics are quite hilarious, so you can read them in the LJ-cut:
Comus
Your hay it is mow'd and your corn is reap'd,
Your barns will be full and your hovels heap'd.
Come, boys, come
And merrily roar out our harvest home.
Chorus
Come, boys, come
And merrily roar out our harvest home.
Comus
We've cheated the parson, we'll cheat him again,
For why should a blockhead have one in ten?
One in ten, one in ten?
All
One in ten, one in ten,
For why should a blockhead have one in ten?
Comus
For pratting so long like a book-learn'd sot,
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot;
Burnt to pot, burnt to pot?
All
Burnt to pot, burnt to pot,
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot.
Comus
We'll toss off our ale till we cannot stand;
And heigh for the honour of old England;
Old England, old England?
All
Old England, old England,
And heigh for the honour of old England
And heigh for the honour of old England!
We also performed during the First of May festivites and sang some funny drinking songs to the students who were hangover from partying the previous night. After that some of us parted ways, and I went with some of the guys from our choir to a local bar to eat 'sillis' (it's a kind of a lunch with mixed herring salad and bread for those who have a severe hangover, although anyone can buy that stuff and enjoy the company of students). We played a bit of Alias and also argued about Disney movies, LotR movies vs. LotR books, Harry Potter, Star Wars, anime, sports, girls and other stuff I can't remember.
I would've stayed longer, but my bro called and asked if I could help him by coming with him to show certain places of our city to Nigerian soccer players who bro wanted to join his soccer team. I decided to help him out, and we spent the next couple of hours explaining stuff about the city, the soccer team and other stuff like that to the Nigerians who were excited about all of that. Later on I also met their manager, a real Nigerian prince who was quite a gentleman. We got along fine, although his English accent was sometimes hard to follow. The rest of the First of May went fine and I met some of my friends, although I didn't spend much time with them because they wanted to have some private time with their girlfriends.
I worked like crazy with all the school assignments during May, and I managed to get most of them done. I decided to leave some of them until autumn, because I didn't want to burn out, and I wasn't really in any hurry, because I've been studying at a steady pace anyway. Our nonverbal communication course turned out to be very interesting even though at first I thought it would be boring. Our professor Sirkku Aaltonen really had interesting lectures, and I learned a lot of new stuff from the course, and I think I can use some of that information later on in some of my projects. At the end of the course we had a class exam which had questions about the Approach and Avoidance hypothesis, contact and non-contact cultures and various other stuff. Even though I thought the exam didn't go that well, I ended up having 5 as a grade, and I was really surprised. I also finished writing the home essay which had three questions about how NVC is used in different media (in a novel, an advertisement and a magazine). I hope that one went well, because I don't want to rewrite all those six pages.
Our B.A. thesis group was kind of a mess, because due to the illness of our supervisor we got another supervisor to help us out. Needless to say, most of us didn't finish our drafts in time, but we were allowed to hand the drafts to him next year, because he understood that it wasn't our fault that our previous supervisor disappeared in the middle of the seminar sessions. Writing the B.A. thesis has been a pain although I really like my thesis about the portrayal of rabbit societies in Richard Adams's Watership Down, but it's just that in order to support my thesis I need to study a freakload of books about social theory as well as literary methodology to explain concepts like allegory, various political structures and whatnot in the thesis. It just would be easier if I could use the novel as my primary source and forget the secondary, academic sources, but unfortunately the stricts disciplines of our faculty force us to use quite a few secondary sources. Bleh, if writing B.A. thesis of just 20 pages is this hard, I don't even dare to think how hellish writing a M.A. thesis will be. =/
In late May our choir (more specifically, the guys of the choir) were asked to performed in a women's sport event in Hietasaari. Naturally we went there and sang some songs, and we got some money and roses from the women, which was nice. We then went to a local restaurant, Strampen, and ate some delicious meal there and talked about a bunch of stuff, including WoW, sex, Christianity and Atheism, politics and choir stuff in general. After spending a couple of hours in the restaurant each of us headed back to our homes. I finished some other school assignments (including some translation stuff), and then summer vacation finally began.
The vacation didn't last long, though, when I found out that I'd been accepted to the summer job of a harbour master at Segel, one of our local yacht clubs. The work consists of welcoming sailing boats, writing receipts, doing some database work and various random jobs outside, and it's been alright and the pay's good. It's good for my language practice as well because I have to use Swedish quite a bit, and I honestly need to practice it because my skills have been a bit rusty lately. I'm working there with two girls who've been alright. As of now I only have one week of work left, and then I'm back to having a vacation until I go back to the university at the beginning of September.
During this summer I've seen Niklas and talked with him about Death Note (it seems I've managed to make him a DN fan xD), Star Wars and other stuff. Later on Esa came to meet me, and to my surprise he had a new girlfriend. I honestly thought he would've still been with his previous girlfriend, but apparently things had changed the last time I'd seen him. Oh well. He was joking a lot like usual and also invited me to go see him sometime this summer. If all goes well, I'd like to get Niklas and Jarkko, and the three of us could drive to meet him, but we'll see how things go.
And now to some anime related stuff...
The recent Bleach anime fillers haven't been as good as the Bount arc, but they're still alright. The only truly 'meh' one so far was the cake-baking episode, but Hitsugaya, Ikkaku and Kon episodes were badass. I wish we'd see more of Kon, because I'm finally getting warmed up to his antics, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing his serious side more as well as seeing him truly kick Hollow ass. I don't quite understand how the merging of the two dog pluses had taken place in the latest filler episode, though (I mean, if two pluses merge into one hollow, shouldn't that be on its way to a gillian rather than a hollow with two distinct personalities?). I guess the filler team just messed up with that.
In the manga the Grimmjow stuff has been alright, and I've appreciated the adjuchas and gillian history stuff as well as stuff about Shawlong's troupe. However, the fight between Ichi and Grimm has been drawn out, but luckily it seems to end in the next chapter. I just wonder how this actual arc is going to end, because so far it seems more like a Soul Society arc retread than an arc of its own. I hope we'll see Noitora or Halibel kick some ass, but I don't know how Ichi and co will survive if they face higher-level espada. We'll see.
I'll get straight to the point without putting things in spoiler tags, so proceed at your own risk. So... Death Note managed to have a satisfying ending for the most part. It was great how Light's downfall was caused by the combined effort of Mello and Near and also by Mikami's foolish actions, although the real reason, and Light's hubris, was Light's arrogance. It was great how he became a maniac in the final episode when everything was falling around him, and I found Matsuda's fury unintentionally funny. And to give tribute to that scene, check this out:
Water resistance is huge!
It still makes me laugh. xD
I'm glad the anime had a slightly different ending than the manga, but I hope some scenes would've been extended, because the ending was still somewhat rushed in the anime. I did like the coda section, though, particularly with the hints of Misa's suicide as well as Light seeing Lawliet's apparition. Now that I think of the series in retrospect, I think the beginning was the best all the way to the scene when Light's about to be killed by his dad (we got the whole Penber plot stuff, his fiancee, L vs. Light tennis game, L's investigations, Light's surveillance trick etc). Then, as the Yotsuba arc started and we saw the "good" Light, things got a bit boring although there were some nice scenes and we still got L around (I really liked the fights between him and Light). Once Light got his DN back and L was screwed big-time, I really enjoyed the Jesus parallels and all that, but then when Near and Mello came in things turned out to be a bit better than Yotsuba arc but still not as good as the Kira vs. L arc. I liked Takada and Mikami as the new villains, though, and I would've hoped that the series had played a bit more with the triangle drama plot with Light, Takada and Misa, although I appreciated the fact that Mikami's past was shown. The things leading to the finale were somewhat predictable, although I was glad how great the preview of the final episode was (one of the greatest cliffhangers I've seen in anime).
The music turned out to be alright in all the three OSTs. I enjoyed the orchestral and choral tracks more, but many of the rock themes for various characters like Light, L, Misa, Mello and Near were nice, and some of the action tracks were interesting. I can't wait to see the DN special which should be aired sometime in August, and I'd like to watch the whole series through with the dub to see whether it's any good (the preview was alright, but that hardly says anything about the quality of the series as a whole). All in all Death Note was a good anime series and a good break from the formula of many shows, and I hope that one day I can buy the whole show as a DVD set. Time will tell.
I stumbled upon Claymore by accident and decided to watch some episodes of the anime before deciding whether to read the manga or not. To my amazement Claymore turned out to be awesome. It's about time we see an all-female team kick some serious ass and in a believable way in a believable world in a believable story. The story starts out slow but gets some crazy twists along the way and is quite interesting. If you start watching the anime, keep doing so until the ninth episode and then decide whether you want to continue or not. I was sold by the end of the eighth episode (I loved that twist, although it was somewhat predictable, but it was still awesome anyway), and by the time we got to the Endless Gravestones bit with some bittersweet moments, I was reminded of Wolf's Rain in a positive way.
Claymore is a dark series with quite a bit of gore, but it's intriguing. It deals with a Medieval world where demon-like Yoma impersonate people and kill them in secret to eat their guts. People live in constant fear, and they pay to "silver-eyed witches," female warriors who are nick-named Claymores because of the big sword they're carrying, to get rid of the Yoma, because only Claymores (who are half-Yoma, half human but still loyal to humans) can recognize a Yoma in disguise. The series start with one such Claymore, Clare, who befriends a boy and decides to take him on her journeys. The story gets darker and darker as more and more secrets are revealed about the characters' past, the Claymore organization and its principles, the different types of Yomas and the big threat looming in the horizon. I can't reveal anything else without spoiling, so go watch it now. If you're not put off by the gore (and I don't think there's too much of that, so it should be alright), I think you might end up enjoying this dark fantasy story. So far it's been very interesting.
The actors are quite good in their roles, the story works, the animation looks good and graphic, and the songs and score work alright as well. And I love the various twists the story has. All in all Claymore's already close to getting to my list of top anime, and that's rather alarming by itself. I can only hope that the quality of the series stays the same as the series progresses. =)
1900 is the big Bertolucci drama about the history of Italy, starring Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu. It chronicles the life and times of a wealthy landowner's son and a peasant's son as the grow up and eventually end up in opposing sides in the conflict between the Communists and Fascists. The story ends up being quite confusing even though it's about five hours long, and the characters are repulsing for the most part. There are some truly disturbing scenes, and we even see some penii, animals getting slaughtered, masturbation, gruesome deaths and whatnot. It's obvious that Bertolucci the director has a fascination with sexual stuff, because the movie's full of that kind of symbolism. There are some artistic values as well, but the movie ends up being too disturbing to work as a romantic pastorale which it claims to be. The actors do a good job, though, and Ennio Morricone's score is alright. Cinematography's quite good too, and the sets and the costumes are outstanding. However, this movie could've been so much more if the story had been more focused and if it hadn't been so odd and disturbing acid trip. I'll give it 3 stars out of 5.
Dawn of the Dead remake was alright. It's somewhat similar to the older classic version but has its own twists and turns. Most of the cast is alright, but I hated that teenager girl who didn't get what she deserved. There are some disturbing moments, but all in all I was expecting a more graphic version after all the hype. The effects look alright, but the story's somewhat of a mess with too many illogical consequences and stuff like that. The score is rather bland and uninteresting, but cinematography works (I particularly like the first 15 minutes with the chaos going on). It's not as good as the original, but I think it's worth a watch anyway. I'll give it 3- stars out of 5.
I found quite a few soundtracks which I've enjoyed listening to. Stuff like Quest for Camelot score, The Robe 2CD version, Mask of the Phantasm Expanded score, The Lion King 2 and DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp promo have been thrilling, and I've enjoyed listening to Globus's Epicon album as well (I guess you could define it as cinematic rock) among other things. I guess I need to buy a new hard drive soon, because I'm starting to run out of space. xD Also, the recent Bleach opening song "Alones" by Aqua Timez has been slowly growing on me, and nowadays I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I guess it might end up being in my top three Bleach openings as far as emotional quality and music goes, and that's not a bad thing.
I've also noticed that tGA's back online (at least for the time being xD). Check it out.
Things have been slow after the server crash, and now there have been talks about starting the RP up again but this time with a new story. I don't know what kind of thing has ended up being the premise of the new RP (assuming that people came to an agreement at all during my absence), but I wouldn't mind if the next story started 5-50 years from the previous RP, because that'd be far enough from the story and still retain some continuity to the previous storyline. If that turned out to be the timeframe, I could work out a character into the RP and use as my primary character, and this character would end up being the one farthest away from the fighter-oriented characters I've had. Plus if we had the 50-year-absence storyframe, I'd manage to introduce this character in an interesting way too (I already have a great introduction scene in mind). But, I guess I'll have to wait and see which storyline people end up using before I decide whether I can use this character or not.
I guess this is all for the time being. I should get more free time once I stop working early next month, so I hope I'll manage to update my LJ more regularly. Until then, take care, everyone.
Yours,
Mikko
But, before I do anything else, I'd like to wish happy birthday to Raist and valentine4ever. I hope both of you are having a good time. And congrats to Nic, too. Whoa, I've really missed a lot while I've been away! I hope everyone else has been alright as well.
So, back to the story. In late April our choir had the spring concert. For some lame reason a lot of people from our choir had dropped off, so we ended up having only like 15 people or so in the actual concert. I'm glad that the singers were divided evenly so that we had about as many tenors, bass, altos and sopranos so that the choir was balanced well.
We sang a bunch of different songs, ranging from Kodaly's Hungarian stuff to Finnish folk songs (with some Italian, French, English, Latin and Spanish songs in between), and we also had some special songs for just the girls and just the boys. The one song that really made the audience cheer was the "drinking song" which we guys sang. Basically the song's part of Purcell's "King Arthur" libretto (we only performed parts of the King Arthur stuff, because the whole stuff is too long and would've taken away the other songs), and the song has quite a catchy melody.
It's a great drinking song, and we staged it so that we kind of made ourselves look like we were drunk by opening some buttons of our suits etc.(and actually some of the guys were drunk when we got to the point to sing the song xD), and we also had big beer mugs and drank from them whenever the song had interludes by piano. Some of the guys really had beer in those mugs, but I and a few others had just water. The audience was roaring with laughter, because they weren't expecting this kind of song after all the serious songs (I wonder what they might've thought if they'd known that some of us really were drunk xD), and they really enjoyed the performance.
The lyrics are quite hilarious, so you can read them in the LJ-cut:
Comus
Your hay it is mow'd and your corn is reap'd,
Your barns will be full and your hovels heap'd.
Come, boys, come
And merrily roar out our harvest home.
Chorus
Come, boys, come
And merrily roar out our harvest home.
Comus
We've cheated the parson, we'll cheat him again,
For why should a blockhead have one in ten?
One in ten, one in ten?
All
One in ten, one in ten,
For why should a blockhead have one in ten?
Comus
For pratting so long like a book-learn'd sot,
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot;
Burnt to pot, burnt to pot?
All
Burnt to pot, burnt to pot,
Till pudding and dumpling are burnt to pot.
Comus
We'll toss off our ale till we cannot stand;
And heigh for the honour of old England;
Old England, old England?
All
Old England, old England,
And heigh for the honour of old England
And heigh for the honour of old England!
We also performed during the First of May festivites and sang some funny drinking songs to the students who were hangover from partying the previous night. After that some of us parted ways, and I went with some of the guys from our choir to a local bar to eat 'sillis' (it's a kind of a lunch with mixed herring salad and bread for those who have a severe hangover, although anyone can buy that stuff and enjoy the company of students). We played a bit of Alias and also argued about Disney movies, LotR movies vs. LotR books, Harry Potter, Star Wars, anime, sports, girls and other stuff I can't remember.
I would've stayed longer, but my bro called and asked if I could help him by coming with him to show certain places of our city to Nigerian soccer players who bro wanted to join his soccer team. I decided to help him out, and we spent the next couple of hours explaining stuff about the city, the soccer team and other stuff like that to the Nigerians who were excited about all of that. Later on I also met their manager, a real Nigerian prince who was quite a gentleman. We got along fine, although his English accent was sometimes hard to follow. The rest of the First of May went fine and I met some of my friends, although I didn't spend much time with them because they wanted to have some private time with their girlfriends.
I worked like crazy with all the school assignments during May, and I managed to get most of them done. I decided to leave some of them until autumn, because I didn't want to burn out, and I wasn't really in any hurry, because I've been studying at a steady pace anyway. Our nonverbal communication course turned out to be very interesting even though at first I thought it would be boring. Our professor Sirkku Aaltonen really had interesting lectures, and I learned a lot of new stuff from the course, and I think I can use some of that information later on in some of my projects. At the end of the course we had a class exam which had questions about the Approach and Avoidance hypothesis, contact and non-contact cultures and various other stuff. Even though I thought the exam didn't go that well, I ended up having 5 as a grade, and I was really surprised. I also finished writing the home essay which had three questions about how NVC is used in different media (in a novel, an advertisement and a magazine). I hope that one went well, because I don't want to rewrite all those six pages.
Our B.A. thesis group was kind of a mess, because due to the illness of our supervisor we got another supervisor to help us out. Needless to say, most of us didn't finish our drafts in time, but we were allowed to hand the drafts to him next year, because he understood that it wasn't our fault that our previous supervisor disappeared in the middle of the seminar sessions. Writing the B.A. thesis has been a pain although I really like my thesis about the portrayal of rabbit societies in Richard Adams's Watership Down, but it's just that in order to support my thesis I need to study a freakload of books about social theory as well as literary methodology to explain concepts like allegory, various political structures and whatnot in the thesis. It just would be easier if I could use the novel as my primary source and forget the secondary, academic sources, but unfortunately the stricts disciplines of our faculty force us to use quite a few secondary sources. Bleh, if writing B.A. thesis of just 20 pages is this hard, I don't even dare to think how hellish writing a M.A. thesis will be. =/
In late May our choir (more specifically, the guys of the choir) were asked to performed in a women's sport event in Hietasaari. Naturally we went there and sang some songs, and we got some money and roses from the women, which was nice. We then went to a local restaurant, Strampen, and ate some delicious meal there and talked about a bunch of stuff, including WoW, sex, Christianity and Atheism, politics and choir stuff in general. After spending a couple of hours in the restaurant each of us headed back to our homes. I finished some other school assignments (including some translation stuff), and then summer vacation finally began.
The vacation didn't last long, though, when I found out that I'd been accepted to the summer job of a harbour master at Segel, one of our local yacht clubs. The work consists of welcoming sailing boats, writing receipts, doing some database work and various random jobs outside, and it's been alright and the pay's good. It's good for my language practice as well because I have to use Swedish quite a bit, and I honestly need to practice it because my skills have been a bit rusty lately. I'm working there with two girls who've been alright. As of now I only have one week of work left, and then I'm back to having a vacation until I go back to the university at the beginning of September.
During this summer I've seen Niklas and talked with him about Death Note (it seems I've managed to make him a DN fan xD), Star Wars and other stuff. Later on Esa came to meet me, and to my surprise he had a new girlfriend. I honestly thought he would've still been with his previous girlfriend, but apparently things had changed the last time I'd seen him. Oh well. He was joking a lot like usual and also invited me to go see him sometime this summer. If all goes well, I'd like to get Niklas and Jarkko, and the three of us could drive to meet him, but we'll see how things go.
And now to some anime related stuff...
The recent Bleach anime fillers haven't been as good as the Bount arc, but they're still alright. The only truly 'meh' one so far was the cake-baking episode, but Hitsugaya, Ikkaku and Kon episodes were badass. I wish we'd see more of Kon, because I'm finally getting warmed up to his antics, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing his serious side more as well as seeing him truly kick Hollow ass. I don't quite understand how the merging of the two dog pluses had taken place in the latest filler episode, though (I mean, if two pluses merge into one hollow, shouldn't that be on its way to a gillian rather than a hollow with two distinct personalities?). I guess the filler team just messed up with that.
In the manga the Grimmjow stuff has been alright, and I've appreciated the adjuchas and gillian history stuff as well as stuff about Shawlong's troupe. However, the fight between Ichi and Grimm has been drawn out, but luckily it seems to end in the next chapter. I just wonder how this actual arc is going to end, because so far it seems more like a Soul Society arc retread than an arc of its own. I hope we'll see Noitora or Halibel kick some ass, but I don't know how Ichi and co will survive if they face higher-level espada. We'll see.
I'll get straight to the point without putting things in spoiler tags, so proceed at your own risk. So... Death Note managed to have a satisfying ending for the most part. It was great how Light's downfall was caused by the combined effort of Mello and Near and also by Mikami's foolish actions, although the real reason, and Light's hubris, was Light's arrogance. It was great how he became a maniac in the final episode when everything was falling around him, and I found Matsuda's fury unintentionally funny. And to give tribute to that scene, check this out:
Water resistance is huge!
It still makes me laugh. xD
I'm glad the anime had a slightly different ending than the manga, but I hope some scenes would've been extended, because the ending was still somewhat rushed in the anime. I did like the coda section, though, particularly with the hints of Misa's suicide as well as Light seeing Lawliet's apparition. Now that I think of the series in retrospect, I think the beginning was the best all the way to the scene when Light's about to be killed by his dad (we got the whole Penber plot stuff, his fiancee, L vs. Light tennis game, L's investigations, Light's surveillance trick etc). Then, as the Yotsuba arc started and we saw the "good" Light, things got a bit boring although there were some nice scenes and we still got L around (I really liked the fights between him and Light). Once Light got his DN back and L was screwed big-time, I really enjoyed the Jesus parallels and all that, but then when Near and Mello came in things turned out to be a bit better than Yotsuba arc but still not as good as the Kira vs. L arc. I liked Takada and Mikami as the new villains, though, and I would've hoped that the series had played a bit more with the triangle drama plot with Light, Takada and Misa, although I appreciated the fact that Mikami's past was shown. The things leading to the finale were somewhat predictable, although I was glad how great the preview of the final episode was (one of the greatest cliffhangers I've seen in anime).
The music turned out to be alright in all the three OSTs. I enjoyed the orchestral and choral tracks more, but many of the rock themes for various characters like Light, L, Misa, Mello and Near were nice, and some of the action tracks were interesting. I can't wait to see the DN special which should be aired sometime in August, and I'd like to watch the whole series through with the dub to see whether it's any good (the preview was alright, but that hardly says anything about the quality of the series as a whole). All in all Death Note was a good anime series and a good break from the formula of many shows, and I hope that one day I can buy the whole show as a DVD set. Time will tell.
I stumbled upon Claymore by accident and decided to watch some episodes of the anime before deciding whether to read the manga or not. To my amazement Claymore turned out to be awesome. It's about time we see an all-female team kick some serious ass and in a believable way in a believable world in a believable story. The story starts out slow but gets some crazy twists along the way and is quite interesting. If you start watching the anime, keep doing so until the ninth episode and then decide whether you want to continue or not. I was sold by the end of the eighth episode (I loved that twist, although it was somewhat predictable, but it was still awesome anyway), and by the time we got to the Endless Gravestones bit with some bittersweet moments, I was reminded of Wolf's Rain in a positive way.
Claymore is a dark series with quite a bit of gore, but it's intriguing. It deals with a Medieval world where demon-like Yoma impersonate people and kill them in secret to eat their guts. People live in constant fear, and they pay to "silver-eyed witches," female warriors who are nick-named Claymores because of the big sword they're carrying, to get rid of the Yoma, because only Claymores (who are half-Yoma, half human but still loyal to humans) can recognize a Yoma in disguise. The series start with one such Claymore, Clare, who befriends a boy and decides to take him on her journeys. The story gets darker and darker as more and more secrets are revealed about the characters' past, the Claymore organization and its principles, the different types of Yomas and the big threat looming in the horizon. I can't reveal anything else without spoiling, so go watch it now. If you're not put off by the gore (and I don't think there's too much of that, so it should be alright), I think you might end up enjoying this dark fantasy story. So far it's been very interesting.
The actors are quite good in their roles, the story works, the animation looks good and graphic, and the songs and score work alright as well. And I love the various twists the story has. All in all Claymore's already close to getting to my list of top anime, and that's rather alarming by itself. I can only hope that the quality of the series stays the same as the series progresses. =)
1900 is the big Bertolucci drama about the history of Italy, starring Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu. It chronicles the life and times of a wealthy landowner's son and a peasant's son as the grow up and eventually end up in opposing sides in the conflict between the Communists and Fascists. The story ends up being quite confusing even though it's about five hours long, and the characters are repulsing for the most part. There are some truly disturbing scenes, and we even see some penii, animals getting slaughtered, masturbation, gruesome deaths and whatnot. It's obvious that Bertolucci the director has a fascination with sexual stuff, because the movie's full of that kind of symbolism. There are some artistic values as well, but the movie ends up being too disturbing to work as a romantic pastorale which it claims to be. The actors do a good job, though, and Ennio Morricone's score is alright. Cinematography's quite good too, and the sets and the costumes are outstanding. However, this movie could've been so much more if the story had been more focused and if it hadn't been so odd and disturbing acid trip. I'll give it 3 stars out of 5.
Dawn of the Dead remake was alright. It's somewhat similar to the older classic version but has its own twists and turns. Most of the cast is alright, but I hated that teenager girl who didn't get what she deserved. There are some disturbing moments, but all in all I was expecting a more graphic version after all the hype. The effects look alright, but the story's somewhat of a mess with too many illogical consequences and stuff like that. The score is rather bland and uninteresting, but cinematography works (I particularly like the first 15 minutes with the chaos going on). It's not as good as the original, but I think it's worth a watch anyway. I'll give it 3- stars out of 5.
I found quite a few soundtracks which I've enjoyed listening to. Stuff like Quest for Camelot score, The Robe 2CD version, Mask of the Phantasm Expanded score, The Lion King 2 and DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp promo have been thrilling, and I've enjoyed listening to Globus's Epicon album as well (I guess you could define it as cinematic rock) among other things. I guess I need to buy a new hard drive soon, because I'm starting to run out of space. xD Also, the recent Bleach opening song "Alones" by Aqua Timez has been slowly growing on me, and nowadays I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I guess it might end up being in my top three Bleach openings as far as emotional quality and music goes, and that's not a bad thing.
I've also noticed that tGA's back online (at least for the time being xD). Check it out.
Things have been slow after the server crash, and now there have been talks about starting the RP up again but this time with a new story. I don't know what kind of thing has ended up being the premise of the new RP (assuming that people came to an agreement at all during my absence), but I wouldn't mind if the next story started 5-50 years from the previous RP, because that'd be far enough from the story and still retain some continuity to the previous storyline. If that turned out to be the timeframe, I could work out a character into the RP and use as my primary character, and this character would end up being the one farthest away from the fighter-oriented characters I've had. Plus if we had the 50-year-absence storyframe, I'd manage to introduce this character in an interesting way too (I already have a great introduction scene in mind). But, I guess I'll have to wait and see which storyline people end up using before I decide whether I can use this character or not.
I guess this is all for the time being. I should get more free time once I stop working early next month, so I hope I'll manage to update my LJ more regularly. Until then, take care, everyone.
Yours,
Mikko