-ing APR/MAY 2013

Hello My Precious Earthling Babies! (Okay, that does sound weird but hey! It's me.)

Another -ing. I feel like I haven'e done one in ages and I really haven't. I have been doing so much lately and here's my attempt to tell you what I am doing at the moment that's not school-related. Or exam-related. Or revision-related.

Joining: GOODREADS! and Pulseit

Reading: --------> Goodreads sidebar

Listening (Audio Book): Seriously... I'm Kidding - Ellen DeGeneres

Watching (TV series): The Mentalist

Watching (Anime): Post coming soon! ^_^ 

Magazine-ing: 

• Ray - Jan 2013
• Vivi - August 2012
• Company - February & April 2013

Searching: Artsy/Drawing Materials

History Revision = Hetalia!

Hey! 

I HAVE A NIGHT OFF! Well, close enough. I don't have any homework tonight so I sort of have a break where I can do whatever I want. Which, after multiple Youtube videos, ended up being revision. Yup, I am totally that depressing to be revising on my night off. I mean I do care about my GCSEs but that's not the point right now. So I am revising history. When I say revising history, I really just mean watching Hetalia: Axis Powers.

(L to R) Japan. Germany. Italy. Chibitalia.

Please enjoy this GIF of classic Italy. :)

PASTAAAAA~

I watch it English dubbed because it's a surprisingly amazing dubbed anime. It's not strictly always correct history and it's a comic take on it, but it's information is not that bad. Watch the German Hyper Inflation episode. It's actually true to history. It can pass as history revision. Totally. Plus each episodes are only 4 minutes or so long. I can finish like 12 in an hour. Score!

Hetalia: Axis Powers

Episodes: 52 (5 minutes each)

Studio: Studio Deen

Year: 2009-2010

Genre: Comedy, Historical, Parody

Storyline: Italy, once home of the strongest empire in the world, has changed. This is the story of Italy (Hetalia), now a cowardly pasta-loving fool, and his friend (other personified countries of the world, namely Germany and Japan) as they live through strange but interesting moments in world history.

Everyone knows there are a lot of countries in the world. So instead of me rambling on about all the characters (countries) in Hetalia, I have decided to use pictures. Yes, it's confusing with so many characters. 

Everyone love cute chibi version of things.

I am not even going to go into all the fan-fiction for Hetalia. There are far too many Yaoi/Shounen Ai ships. But I am going to take Belarus as an example of some awesome fan drawings. 

Original

This one is just pretty.

Kickass Belarus and a male version of her = YES!

No, she is not the Ice Queen. This is just a pretty shoujo version.

By far my favourite fan drawing.
Seriously, SHE IS A LOLITA ASSASSIN!
That drawing style = I WANT!

I am only on Season 2 but I am loving it so far. I am totally keeping up my 'history' revision!

~Draw a circle, that's the Earth. I am Hetalia!~

Films! In My 10 Days Holiday

Hey! First thing first, it snowed again. Yes, it snowed 2 days ago and it's still covered with snow everywhere. It's rather boring because 1. It obstruct vehicles and 2. It's a pain when it melts. Second thing first, or is it first thing second? One of it must work. Anyway, -thumbs up- for berries smoothies! Yeah, I had like 2 yesterday? Like giant cups and they are delicious. Then I had chocolate ice-cream cone today, I am not much of a person for diet and eating healthy. 

Nevertheless, let's talk about... MURDERS! -insert rainbow background-. Okay, I am just messing with you. That was lifted from the Persona 4 comic dub. Seriously, let's talk about... MOVIES! When you get a 10 days worth of quality break and you are a huge movie addict and it's the Oscars tonight... Yep, watching a load of movies happens. It's a shame I can't watch the Oscars live, but I still get to know the results tomorrow and hopefully want it when I get home. I like going off topic so let's talk about 2013 Oscars Best Picture nominations for the time being. I can talk about my other movies after this.

There are 9 movies nominated and I have watched about... 3? So that's about a third, it's not that bad. I have seen:

• Les Miserables = 8.8 / 10
• Life of Pi = 8.7 / 10
• Beasts of the Southern Wild = 8.2 / 10

They are 3 excellent movies but I also wanted to see Amour, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook. French films are a bit of a hit of miss. I still have to see Amelie but my mum says it's amazing. See? I went off topic again! I am great at doing it. I will watch those movies though. Just on a side note, Anne Hathaway deserves that Oscars. My family and I just made predictions for all the categorises and we are totally battling out to see who wins, even though none of us have seen all the movies. Oh well, it's fun anyway.  

Let's have a look at all the movies I have seen recently! (They are not going to be in long details and cutting out the storyline because that would take forever.)

Wreck-It Ralph

Genre: Animation, Comedy, Adventure

Film Rating: PG

Starring (Voice): John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch

Running Time: 108 minutes

This. Is. The. Best. Animation. Movie. EVER! On many many MANY different levels. It's a quality animation movie which you don't really see now-a-days. I just love this movie. Even if you are not into video games, like me, still, WATCH IT! It's heart-warming and awesome. I admit that I even started to tear up near the end even though I know what would happen. I hope it wins the animation Oscar.  

Rating: 9.2 / 10

So Undercover

Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance

Film Rating: 12A

Starring: Miley Cyrus, Jeremy Piven, Joshua Bowman, Lauren McKnight, Eloise Mumford

Running Time: 94 minutes

To say it bluntly, I have no idea why I decided to watch it. Seriously. I don't particularly like or dislike Miley Cyrus. It's cliché and predictable. There wasn't actually any hope of it being a good movie. But still, I watched it. I must say, it's not all that bad and a complete waste of time. Don't take it as good because it wasn't. It was all cliché and predictable and not great. It's basically a college version of Miss Congeniality. If you are looking for a cheesy, have time to waste on a "Rom-Com", go for it. Just don't expect anything. Miley Cyrus was a whole lot better in The Last Song. 

Rating: 5.4 / 10

I mentioned that I watched Breaking Dawn Part 1 and 2 in my last post so I don't bother talking about them again. I usually watch East Asian (Chinese, Hong Kong, Japanese, Korean) movies with my family. So let's get into those. 

Cold War (寒戰)

Genre: Action, Drama, Mystery

Starring: Aaron Kwok, Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Charlie Yeung, Gordon Lam

Running Time: 102 minutes

This movie has it all. Drama, suspense and great actors. It's one of those movie you should definitely watch even if you are not into the whole police thing. It's a super recommend from my mum and uncle.

Rating: 8.7 / 10

Natural Born Lovers (天生愛情狂)

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama

Starring: Julian Cheung, Annie Liu, Oscar Leung, Anna Kay, Mandy Wong

Running Time: 106 minutes

Yes, it's another rom-com. This one was sort of refreshing. I don't like any of the director's works but this one was half decent. It has a nice idea. Considering the poor Hong Kong rom-com film industry, this one is quite good. I liked it at least. But it was still creepy. You have been warned. 

Rating: 7.4 / 10

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (西遊·降魔篇)

Genre: Action, Martial Art, Comedy, Fantasy, Adventure

Starring: Huang Bo, Shu Qi, Wen Zhang, Show Luo

Running Time: 110 minutes

Yay! It's a Stephen Chow movie. That is as good as it gets. It's a hugely disappointing movie considering it smashed the Chinese box-office. It should be funny but there is about 2 scenes of 2 minutes which is vaugely amusing. Stephen Chow's last movie was CJ 7 and that was terrible. This is better but still a bad movie. I mean, Stephen Chow is such a comedic legend! I did sort of watch the movie because Show Luo had a tiny part. The must amusing part for me was when the enormous fish ate the little girl.

Rating: 5.2 / 10

I said I have seen quite a few films in 10 days but all in all... -counting- 10. Oh! I have 10! Ha! That's like 1 film per day. Hmmmmmmmmm.... I am totes awesome.

Torturing hell, also known as school starts again tomorrow so I will probably be busy again. -frown- But I will keep posting. I do have a music post saved up for tomorrow. I promise I will have one. When I make a promise, I keep it. Talk to ya soon~

I Love Anime! Persona 4 and Star Driver

Trolololololololo~ -skip like a fairy- Aww, I miss my fellow fairies. 

Anime mode... ACTIVATE! 

Have I ever mentioned I love Anime? Like I seriously fricking LOVE IT! However, I did take a hiatus for about 4 months from watching any anime. That's like 30 years in my anime-watching time. I can list loads of reasons why but it's mainly I have ran out of brilliant animes and I have just sort of gone off it. It's no worry though, because I am back! -run and give anime a big hug-

Persona 4: The Animation

Studio: AIC ASTA and Aniplex

Year: 2011 - 2012

Episodes: 25 + 1 True ending

Genre: Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Drama, Mystery, Horror

Storyline: When Yu Narumaki moves to a rural country town of Inaba with his uncle and cousin for a year, he was expecting more peace and quiet than the big city. Instead, a series of mysterious murders and kidnappings occur in the town. Things get even crazier when he discovers the "Midnight Channel" and that he has the special ability to enter into TVs. Accompanied by his disbelieving friends, Yu discovers another world inside the TVs which seemed to be connected to the murders. They also gain "Persona", whose power can be used to fight the shadows that inhabit the TV world. Yu and his friends fight to figure out how everything is connected and try to solve the case before it's too late.

If case you haven't realised, it's based off the game and according to a friend of mine, the storyline stayed very close to the plot of the game. Unfortunately, I haven't played the game. I REALLY want to. But I just can't. I don't own a PS2 or PS Vita. It's such a shame, I know.

This isn't a review or anything, it's just my thoughts after I watched the entire series. Okay, it's like a review but 76% less serious. Let's start of with a graph. Graph, GO!

Please let me to explain this graph. An anime graph is pretty much exactly the same as a rom-com graph.

Normal--Increase in happiness--PEAK--Decrease by 70%--Goes back up and TADA! Happily every after

Paint sort of limit the graph I wanted to draw, but it turned out okay. So yay!

Before I really dive in, here's some Persona 4 images that you can enjoy:

Chibis FTW! They are adorable and hilarious.

From the Game

I am pretty sure everyone like Yu.

So I spent last weekend watching this entire anime in one go. Well, split into 2 days. It's been on my to-watch list for ages but I just haven't got around to watching it. To sum up my feelings... I LOVE IT! The entire anime was amazing. It was a quality action-packed good fantasy anime. It's probably because it's based off such a good game. So I am going to try to explain things I liked and didn't liked about it without spoiling.

Awesomeness:

• The art for the animation is brilliant. The eyes and hair are really well done.
• It's fantasy and they use personas while wearing glasses. Enough said.
• WATCH EP 7! It's so disturbing but hilarious at the same time. It's like the best episode in my opinion.
• All the main characters are so loveable and you can't really hate them. Well, you can. But they all undergo developments. 

Not-so-awesomeness:

• I am very good with predicting storylines. So it comes at no surprise that the entire plot didn't surprise me. I did predict just about all of it. That's just me. It might not be as predictable if you watch it yourself.
• The preview of the next episode at the end of each episode is awful. It seriously makes every episode look all scary and sad. -shiver-

I liked all the Arcanas cards. They aren't that special or different but I liked it. My favourite character was probably Naoto, for reasons I can not say, or Chie. Of all the personas, I like Himiko, Rise's persona the best. But Yukiko's persona Honohana Sakuya was the prettiest.

Overall rating: ... -drumroll- ... 8.4 / 10



This comic dub for Persona 4 is so funny. Seriously, even without knowing much about the anime or the game, it's still hilarious. It's like a parody of Persona 4, even when it's already funny. Enjoy~ 

Star Driver: Kagayaki no Takuto

This was the last anime I watched in September last year before my long hiatus. It's a seriously good anime.

Studio: Bones

Year: 2010 - 2011

Episodes: 25

Genre: Mecha, Action, Sci-fi, Comedy, Drama

Storyline: It takes place on the fictional Southern Cross Isle. One night, a boy named Takuto washes up on shore from swimming from the mainland. After being rescued by Wako, he later enrolls into the Southern Cross High School as a freshman and meet different people. However, underneath the school is a group of mysterious giants called Cybodies, which are controlled by humans in a dimension known as Zero Time. The story follows Takuto as The "Galactic Pretty Boy" as he fight against a group called "Glittering Crux Brigade". 

Here's some pictures of the anime:

The thing I loved most about this anime is the 4 maiden's songs. My rankings: 

1. Monochrome - Sakana-chan
2. Komorebi no Contact - Wako
3. Innocent Blue - Mizuno
4. Akiiro no Aria - Keito

Monochrome by Sakana-chan is one of my favourite Japanese song of all time. No jokes. I love it so much that I have it on my iPod and I did listen to it non-stop on replay for days. It was a little crazy obsession. Although I don't like Wako, her song was better than the other two. I suggest you either watch the anime or Youtube the songs to find out how pretty they are.  

There are a few complains I have for the anime:

• I hate love triangles. I absolutely loathe them. It's not much of a spoiler that Star Driver has a love triangle. I hate it. Garrr~ -shiver at how bad it is-
• I didn't like Wako. At all. Not even at the beginning. I should, because she is the female lead. But I just can't. I really just don't like her on many levels. 
• Some of the characters and sub-plot was just... what?! It was so random and weird that I don't really have words for it. 

The ending... my reaction was: Just... WHAT?! WHAT DID I JUST WATCH?! That was how bad the ending was. I can't even call it an ending. It was that bad. All those terrible things aside, I really enjoyed this anime. Luckily, I found out there is going to be a movie coming out! I am so exciting for it. Because it was a really good anime but the ending was terrible. I hope the movie makes up for the bad ending. It's coming out in 9 days! 9 days! Can't you wait? No, I can't either! Here are some posters for the movie: 

Overall rating: 7.5 / 10

Hope you will like the animes~