Music: Blue Rain & Do You Remember by Moumoon

眠気が飛ぶほど楽しませてよ by いもたろう＠プロフ on pixiv.net

So, look who’s back and dishing out a post. I had actually prepared this post earlier in March, but due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to go ninja and poof off once again. I’ll take this opportunity to thank you all for the lovely welcome back on Twitter when I did come out from the depths of my hiding. In this post, I’m going to share about music! A kind of a first proper post regarding the subject, but anyway.

So when it comes to music, I’m usually quite open to all genres but I’m pretty hard to please so I usually end up to just one song from each category and beat them to death. I stumbled upon Moumoon a few years ago when I received a small bottle of Anessa sunscreen.

Kimi ni Mune Kyun! (plus a mini Winter Anime update!)

There’s just something about the exam season where I always end up re-reading Eyeshield 21. Just finished reading my #1 favourite match this morning – Deimon vs. Shinryuuji!! The last 58 seconds of the match…!! @_@

This is not good for studying.

But that’s not why I’m posting today. I am a massive fan of School Food Punishment – if it does/not sound familiar, they’re the geniuses responsible for ‘Futuristic Imagination’ and ‘light prayer’ for Higashi no Eden. Last season, they sang ‘How to Go’ for Un-Go (I KNEW it was them the moment the song started!! XD) and before that, RPG for [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control.

If you haven’t listened to them, do so. Like. NOW.

In any case, a song that I’ve been addicted to lately from their How to Go single is Kimi ni, Mune Kyun -Uwaki no Vacanses-. It’s a really, really cute song with their own blend of the electrical techno thingy they do with a keyboard/guitar/synthesiser/whatever (you may notice I know zilch about music from my description) along with the calming, sweet vocals of Ichimura Yumi .

Autumn Anime Rants!

Well first I just want to take the opportunity to say THANK YOU to all our readers who’ve been following us, especially those who’ve been doing so since we started. It’s already been one year, and when we started this project I was being a real pessimist about it and honestly didn’t think I would be writing this much but voila! Just look at the stuff life throws at you. It’s been a hectic year with Chungky; we’ve laughed, gossiped and squabbled over the most minor things over MW, and despite all my ‘Dude, are you sure you wanna do this?’ and ‘Dude, I don’t know if it’ll work…’ comments, I’m glad Chungky bulldozed all those comments down and brought together what we all now know as Manga Weekend… so let’s all have some cake! =D

Un cafe, per favore by 四々九

So ever since uni started, I’ve hardly had a break. Five weeks since the start of term and I finally get one weekend to myself. Life is currently even busier than when I had my internship over the summer SOBBBBB T-T I meant to post this up aaaaaages ago but life wouldn’t let me.

Nowww on with our Autumn anime. I must say, I was really hyped up for this season. However – I don’t know if it’s because of the anime or because of real-life constraints – I’m not really feeling it. I’ve got a few that I’m into, some that I think are okay and most that I’m just gonna chuck aside because I don’t have the time to give them a 3-episode trial run to see if they get better. I’ll only be ranting about those I’ve watched, which covers most of this season but most definitely not all. Usually I’d add in a summary, but I didn’t have time for that… =(

So let’s start with the ones I’m following for now! =D

Following Up From Last Season…

Mawaru Penguindrum

Yes. I’ve been pretty much hooked since the first episode, and 16 episodes later I still am.

The iDOLM@STER

I started watching The iDOLM@STER out of boredom, found it slightly interesting and grew to like it. The main appeal for me is all the girls and their different characters being equally represented, rather than having two or three main ones and everyone else just being part of a harem. Development is slow, but I do like finding out more about each girl with every episode so for me, it’s still on this season’s to-watch list =)

Following this Season

Chihayafuru

Chihayafuru was the anime that got me most hyped up for this season, and it does not disappoint. I started as a fan of the manga, and I’m glad to see the anime adaptation out. The genres of sport and slice-of-life have always been a handy combo to me, but the way in which it’s presented in Chihayafuru makes it really – well – beautiful? Sweet? Nostalgic…?  The flow of the storyline wasn’t exactly unsurprising when mixing it with the sort of coming-of-age story, but the characters and passion that I always love in sports manga is there; except that this time there’s this dose of something special that would leave you coming back for more.

Definitely something you should be watching this autumn! =D

2NE1TV Live Worldwide Sneak Preview: “I Welcome You to My World, 2-N-E-1!”

Last friday (15/07/12), Manga Weekend had the opportunity to attend an sneak preview of 2NE1TV Live Worldwide which was held in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. You might understand that Arawr and I aren’t in the U.S.A so we engaged our friend and ally, Amelie, who stays in L.A to enjoy the exclusive preview and guest blog for us!

Here we go!

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 The 2NE1TV Live Worldwide sneak preview was held in the CGV Cinema in Korea town and began at around 7:45 p.m. pacific time. My partner on this mission and I began our quest to the sneak preview as soon as we could in the crowded city of Los Angeles. Fans of 2NE1 were lined up patiently outside the venue, while workers frantically ran around making sure everything was well prepared. During the wait, people were cheering, waving their arms in the air, and singing along to the music; a camera man continued to escalate up and down the stairs to get shots of the fans as they waved to the camera and shouted their love to 2NE1. 

Win Tickets to the World Premiere of 2NE1tv LIVE : WORLDWIDE!

To all Blackjacks out there!

We have some very exciting news!  Mnet US is going to have an exclusive invitation only sneak preview of the 2NE1tv LIVE : WORLDWIDE season premiere this Friday, July 15th at 7:45pm at CGV Cinemas in Koreatown in Los Angeles, CA.  This is your chance to see the show before the entire world does!  All you have to do to win a pair of free tickets is to register for the 2NE1 digital street team here by no later than 10am Pacific Time on Thursday, July 14th and your name will be left at will call.  We would also love you to tweet about the screening while you are there and blog about it later if you are blogger.  Feel free to post pictures from the screening onto the internet as well.  Tickets are first come first serve.  Act now!

2NE1TV LIVE: WORLDWIDE Premieres on MNET July 17th!

Hello everyone! MARK YOUR DATES.

We have something special to share with you today about an upcoming reality TV show –  ‘2NE1TV LIVE: WORLDWIDE’  about the hawt Korean Pop-Group 2NE1 which will premiere on Mnet, the ultimate TV network on for Asian Culture.

Summer Anime 2011 Rants

When I first saw the summer line-up, I was quite excited but I wasn’t that impressed. A small part of me kinda felt like not a lot of time would be spent watching anime this season; but after watching the handful that I have, I am really quite glad that it probably won’t turn out that way. I still find the autumn/fall line-up a lot more interesting, but I’ll try to appreciate the present a bit more.

As for the present spring anime that are still continuing, I’m still following Steins Gate, Tiger & Bunny, Hanasaku Iroha and Ao no Exorcist. It’s quite nice to watch and listen to some of the new OPs and EDs. =D

Now, with some music to get us started and all that said, on with the rants!

Natsume Yuujinchou San

Dude who can see spirits, inherits the ‘book of friends’ that used to belong to his grandma that contains the names of spirits. Returns their names to them before they get too pissed off using his spit and some CO2.

The highly anticipated third season of Midorikawa Yuki’s most successful series to date – Natsume Yuujinchou. Out of all the other summer anime, this was probably the one I was waiting for the most. If you’ve been waiting for it, just like me and chungky here… I promise you, you won’t be disappointed. It’s been awhile since I watched Natsume Yuujinchou Zoku, but from the moment I started watching Natsume Yuujinchou San, all the feelings from before came rushing back – the nostalgia, the bitter sweetness and that magical feeling I only seem to get from this anime.

Starry Sky – Sound Track (Japan Version) *UPDATED*

UPDATE: Several individuals have expressed interest in the Starry Sky Sound Track CD and since honeybee does not currently provide any track samples at the moment, I’ve decided to upload 3 songs’ samples and hopefully it’ll give you a taste of what to expect! Let’s all support Honeybee! Browse further in this post for the 3 song samples. I have uploaded them using SoudCloud and I’ve disabled the download option since this is copyrighted material.

Also, I’ve scanned the CD’s front & back cover as well as four pages for a little bit more quality. 

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“All the time I would I think of those precious days when the seasons came around.

All of us laughed,

with lots of love for you.”*

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Hey ho! I’m so happy that my YesAsia order has finally arrived after 2 whole weeks as promised!

I tweeted this one on M.W's Twitter!

I bought two items in this order which is Starry Sky’s BGM Sound Track & the Gakuen Alice Illustration Fan-book. Of course, as the post title suggests, I will be posting a few snapshots of my Starry Sky lovely in this post & I’ll cover the Gakuen Alice book in a separate post since I often confuse myself in extremely long posts(plus I get to increase M.W’s post count by cheating like this). I won’t go into a large amount of detail, just a couple of bits and pieces that I think is worth sharing.

Oh yes, forgive me for some blurry photos, photography isn’t exactly my forte and I was quite excited!

Here are some general info:

Seiza Kareshi Series : Starry Sky Sound Track – Hoshiiro Ongaku Shu – (Japan Version)

High Resolution

Release date: 2009-09-25

Company: HoneyBee

Language: Japanese

Publisher Product Code: HO-91

Package Weight: 100g

-via YesAsia.com

Description:

Original BGM soundtrack release from game & drama CD series “Starry ☆ Sky” featuring 35 tracks total.

Sweet memories, warm memories, the album delivers a melody for a number of  precious time spent with a particular character, including painful memories!

Note: This CD only contains the BGMs, the theme songs are NOT included. This is not the Anime’s OST CD.

Spring Anime 2011 – Ranks, Rants & Ratings

OOOOOKAYYYYY!!! So I’ve been through most of the Spring 2011 Anime, and here are my rankings (in the order in which they appear), my rants (what I pretty much thought about them) and my ratings. The first 2 are pretty subjective to me, but I tried my best to keep the ratings more unbiased; so basically I could think an anime was good, therefore giving it a high rating, but personally preferred another one over it hence giving it a better rank and rant.

Ratings might still be quite biased since I pretty much dashed through everything (there’s about 26 anime here people!) but I tried my best – in fact I think this is the longest post I’ve ever written… Anyway I might give them proper reviews later on in the season, but if you have any favourites you particularly want us to review or whatever, feel free to drop us a message! =D

*WARNING: LOOOOOOONG POST*

This is a pretty huge step up from my previous spring anime post since there are so much more episodes and series’ this time round @_@ Sorry if it’s all a bit too much spammed into a single post – I just really wanted to clear it all up in one go… so let’s start!

Ao no Exorcist

Hopeless dude who can hardly get anything right and keeps getting into fights. Was brought up in an orphanage with twin bro, when suddenly – well, waddya know? – an extremely shounen twist of fate happens.

Okay this rant is going to be super biased since I’m already a fan of the manga. Seriously though, out of the long list of anime I’ve watched so far this spring I still think this is the one I’ve enjoyed the most. Even if you’ve read the manga and know everything that’s about to go down, Ao no Exorcist is definitely still a must-watch. It’s not just the animation, it’s the structure of the story and everything that just makes it completely worthwhile. Also – besides the fact that for some reason I can’t get enough of Rin’s face – story-wise and overall, this is already my favourite so far… and I’ve only watched one episode of it XD

Rating: 5.0/5.0

Since this is No.1 I’ll put in a special mention for their ED – I seriously like it! It’s by that 2PM korean boy band or something =P

One-Shot for the Weekend – Apple

Apple

Manga-ka: Komi Naoshi

Genre: Shounen, Comedy, Sci-fi, Supernatural

Besides having plants growing out of him at times, Aramiya Satoshi has the special ability to shape-shift into animals . He’s a pretty easygoing guy who just wants to be left alone to enjoy his solitary life in the middle of a junkyard, but the army is constantly after him because of his ability.

Published as a one-shot in Weekly Shounen Jump 2008.

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Ahhh!!! I really won’t have time to write that many posts the next few weeks since I have to prepare for my examinations already… Anyway, due to that constraint I couldn’t go looking around for any new one-shots, so I decided to dig up one I read quite some time back by Komi Naoshi – Apple.

So, it’s about a guy who’s super laid back despite the fact that the balance of the world would pretty much rest on his shoulders and a genius kid who tries to help him out. Yep, the typical shounen plot (In fact, it really reminds me of Nobuhiro Watsuki’s one-shot, Meteor Strike). There’s this simplicity about it being the usual shounen that makes it a nice ‘nothing new’ read if you’d like.

Truth is I couldn’t think of any other one-shot for the weekend and this was what I could come up with in short notice when I remembered it was my turn. I wish I could be like the protagonist right now – all relaxed, all powerful, all in no need for education…. Oh well. That’s why it’s all reserved to stay in manga.

Rating: 3.5/5.0

Extra: Music for the Weekend!

When I was taking the bus back from London, I ended up listening to a single song from my playlist 1/3 throughout the journey. Always loved it – so here’s some nice relaxing music for the weekend! XD

-arawr >=3