Guide to Kinokuniya in Singapore

Posted on July 18, 2006 by DarkMirage

Honey & Clover Vol. 8 rocked!!! (Okay, so I’m almost a year late…)

For no particular reason, I shall talk about Kinokuniya in Singapore today. Bear with me here…

Honey and Clover
Note: This image has nothing to do with Kinokuniya

As you probably know, Kinokuniya is a Japanese bookstore chain. The main branch is in Shinjuku in Tokyo. Here’s picture of its signboard because I somehow forgot to take the rest of the building when I was there…

Currently there are Kinokuniya branches in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia and the United States.

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Posted in Blog, Manga | Tagged , | 16 Comments

Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter II – Sentences

Posted on July 14, 2006 by DarkMirage

Now that we have studied how verbs are grouped in Japanese and the various tenses of the polite (丁寧 teinei) form, it’s time to put some of them to use. I’m going to assume that you have read the first lesson and understood everything in it.

Tama-nee~~~

And yes, this week’s theme is Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2. :3

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Posted in Japanese | Tagged , | 30 Comments

4chan does good for Finnish band

Posted on July 11, 2006 by DarkMirage

Remember that flash movie I posted here some time ago? Well apparently, the song was a 1995 remake of an old Finnish song by a band that had long gone inactive. However, due to 4chan and its crazy shenanigans, the song has been made famous overnight through the internet and the band is in back in business.

According to the biggest newspaper of Finland (7/10/06), Helsingin Sanomat, this infamous Loituma girl flash animation has sparked the band’s popularity once more. the song Ievan polkka has been downloaded worldwide hundreds of thousands of times and the band has got fan email from all over the world.

When asked about it, they were astonished. the singer who sings the most famous folk-scat solo part, Ms Autere said she thinks the comeback of Ievan polkka, a song originating in 1930’s and Loituma’s remake in 1995, is because of a flash animation showing a japanese anime girl waving the leek and singing Ievan polkka.

Now the band which had not been active in many years has got their own agent and they’ve been asked to tour in many countries, many of which outside Europe.

So for once 4chan did something good. :3 And here’s the movie if you haven’t seen it already.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | 188 Comments

Zero no Tsukaima 1/8 PVC Louise

Posted on July 10, 2006 by DarkMirage

I think I’ll be placing an order for this from my usual source soon… Sigh, I hope I don’t overspend this month. I just passed ï¿¥8,000 to Kwok last night so that he can pick some stuff up for me in Japan. He’s probably preparing to leave for the airport by now…

Louise

Zero no Tsukaima is like Maburaho with a tsunderekko instead of Yuuna. It’s nothing special, but the first two episodes are great fun so far.

P.S. I want the D.C.2 Vocal Album too…

Posted in Figures, Money | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

NHK ni Youkoso! Episode 1

Posted on July 10, 2006 by DarkMirage

NHK is about a guy who is a NEET (Not in Employment, Education, Training) and a hikikomori (someone who doesn’t go out of his house), who is subsequently turned into an otaku and a lolicon by his ex-schoolmate. You can’t go any lower than that. He believes that NHK (nihon hikikomori kyoukai) is a secret organization conspiring to turn people like him into hikikomori.

One day, a girl appears in his life and promises him that she will make it her project to turn him back into a normal person, resulting in a series of crazy, hilarious and sexually-charged incidents.

Misaki-chan

So, NHK episode 1 has finally aired. I had been looking forward to the series and now that here are my thoughts after watching the first episode.

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Posted in Anime, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Singapore Cosfest 2006

Posted on July 9, 2006 by DarkMirage

Went to Singapore Cosfest 2006 at Downtown East today. It’s a really small event, but it’s pretty much the best we get. I went there with some school mates and ended up bumping into Shia and Kwok. Also met an acquaintance from years ago. Singapore is really small.

My camera’s batteries went flat soon after I got there, so I didn’t manage to take a lot of pictures…

BleachFinal Fantasy XIIDizzy from Guilty Gear, Mai from King of Fighters and Shia from Pita-Ten
Lacus and Lunamaria from Gundam SEED DESTINYNo idea where this is from...Saya from Blood+Here's a stormtrooper. There's always one of these around...Rozen MaidenNo idea, but looks coolNo idea... againThis guy is ShiaKwok from lolicon...trol

There was a guy cosplaying as KOS-MOS… I couldn’t bare to take a picture.

Oh yeah, and that girl who performed “ENDLESS STORY” from Nana on stage, that was good. I love that song so much that I kept replaying that portion of the movie. :3

Anyway, we wandered around the event area for a bit before heading to White Sands for dinner and finally Kwok’s house to look at his pr0n collection help him set up Winny/Share. We ended up watching the first episode of Coyote Ragtime Show (which I had already watched). It’s looking good so far. All hail the killer loli’s.

Posted in Otaku | Tagged , , | 18 Comments

Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter I – Verbs

Posted on July 8, 2006 by DarkMirage

So we finally reach the start of lesson one. Defining the terms took longer than I expected… Please make sure that you have read through the basic term definitions in Chapter 0 before continuing.

Nagato Yuki

I assume that people who read this blog are, more often than not, fansub watchers. So for the first lesson today, instead of talking about “watashi wa John desu”, I’ll begin with something slightly more advance.

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Posted in Japanese | Tagged , | 28 Comments

Beginner’s Japanese – Chapter 0 – Prologue

Posted on July 8, 2006 by DarkMirage

Instead of preparing for the finals of the speech contest tomorrow, I have decided to start a series of lessons to introduce some aspects of Japanese grammar to the those who are interested in learning about this curious language we all know as “moonspeak”.

Shimako

This is not intended as a lesson to teach Japanese to any point of fluency, but rather it’s just a brief introduction to various Japanese grammar forms and whatever else I think of when I am typing them. I intend to make this a semi-regular section, but I might run out of things or feel lazy along the way, so we’ll see how many chapters I can last. Continue reading →

Posted in Japanese | Tagged | 17 Comments

Caught in a web of laughs and lusts

Posted on July 7, 2006 by DarkMirage

I haven’t been blogging much recently. Partly it’s because the new school term has just started, but mostly it’s because I’ve been too busy playing games and getting distracted by various new and shiny objects.

Yuki~~~
This picture of Yuki has nothing to do with
what I am going to blog about today.

Here’s a little recap on just what the hell I have been wasting my life on for the past two weeks… Continue reading →

Posted in Games | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

0verflow Apologizes for Summer Days

Posted on June 29, 2006 by DarkMirage

0verflow has posted a letter of apology on its website for the buggy release of Summer Days. I am one of those who bought the game. Gao. Here’s the full translation:

We would like to express our gratitude for your support of our company’s products.

Our company released the PC Windows game “Summer Days” on 23rd June 2006 (Heisei 18). We have determined that the game contains files that were not meant to be in the final product.

A portion of the data needed to play “Summer Days” in the production disc is of an older version number. We have determined that this causes various errors during gameplay, such as problems with voice overs and scene display and inability to proceed through certain game routes. This is due to a mix up between the master data and some old data, which we failed to notice when we shipped the product. As such, a huge portion of the master data has been overwritten by older data and it is taking us some time to get everything back and to release the correction patches. There was a huge confusion in the company between the time we detected this mistake and when we finally determined the amount of data overwritten, and this slowed down our response. We sincerely apologize to everyone who has purchased the game.

Currently, we are mailing out DVD containing the patch to everyone who has contacted us through e-mail and phone and also to those who have mailed us the feedback card included in the game box. At the same time, we are distrubuting the patch through our BitTorrent server and various mirror sites. Patch DVDs will also be prepared for stores to distribute and will be ready sometime between the 29th of June and the 2nd of July.

We plan to send the complete and fixed master disc, as soon as it’s ready, to everyone who has registered through the feedback card.

We sincerely apologize for all the troubles we have caused for our customers and distributors. We strive to improve our company’s management structure to ensure that such an incident will never happen again. We seek your kind understanding.

28th June Heisei 18
0verflow

I’m not sure if I buy the reason given here. Even if it were true, the damage has already been done. Well but I guess we can be certain that they won’t repeat this again.

Posted in Games | Tagged , , | 14 Comments