music:::Kalimero – Shikabane

Baroque are going major. Call me psychic or something -_-;; Well, I think that I’ve become much more of an observer of the band’s activities than a fan. That’s why I’ve had that feeling they might announce their major debut on the Zepp Tokyo live ever since they’d announced the date of the live.
I’d love to do a new layout for coup d’etat but I don’t have any illustrations to work with. It really sucks not to be allowed to use some band photos for the layout.

Oh and I forgot to put up the links to the Koseiha Blend MP3s last night, sorry! They can be downloaded from coin.html.
And I haven’t mentioned how much I love the pics of merry on the cover artwork! I adore that pic where they’re all wearing cowboy clothes *_*
The lovely folks from Guruguru also sent me a merry flyer! And my Gendai trading cards are almost all of angura kei bands. I got one Guruguru Eigakan, one Inugami Circusdan and one Onmyouza card. The fourth one is a baroque card. Sadly, no merry or Kagrra cards ;_; But if anyone wants to trade, please let me know!

Btw, I’m not in Saarbrücken today, obviously. They said that there’s such a high demand for the Harry Potter movie in German that they can’t show it in English o_O So me and my friend decided not to go all the way down to Saarbrücken. But we’ll go to the Christmas fair here in T. tomorrow, yay! I’m such a Christmas person -_-;; Can’t wait to eat all those yummy things like roasted almonds and baked apples *_*
Only three more weeks and I can go home!

music:::Hotaru – Kaijin ni-juu mensou

Amy, I haven’t preordered my copy of gozen yet either ^^; I don’t think the album will sell out before its release but I think we have to order it soon to get the special preorder goodies… Are you going to order from Brand X again?
I haven’t gotten my Kagrra stuff yet because I had to rearrange my orders ^^; I ordered the merry stuff from Guruguru as that was the only shop that sold Porori’s demotape and shipped overseas (plus they were the only shop who still had that special Fool’s Mate book). I’ll get the two Kagrra maxis with gozen, I hope Brand X will still give out the special video with the maxis…

This week really felt like Christmas: First, one part of my OCS order arrives and now I finally got the big parcel from my mum with the Guruguru order and my Kagrra stuff from scube.
I wrote reviews for the Guruguru stuff (merry, Shock Edge 2002, porori) in my livejournal.
I also got Gendai-something, that band file book from Fool’s Mate. It’s really cool, in fact I like it much better than Shoxx’s Expect Rush. It’s much smaller but also much thicker than ER, the paper isn’t glossy but that’s quite practical because you won’t leave fingerprints on the pages ^^; I really like the page designs, especially that of the Kagrra section. It was definitely worth buying.
Now that scube sent me my Kagrra stuff (goods from their tour in May including the two live-only singles), my Kagrra collection is complete! I’m so proud^^

Samples of some of the things I got can be found here at coin.html. Sorry ’bout that anti-layout ^^; Enjoy the music anyway!

music:::Idlewild – Roseability

I’m drained, exhausted, longing for sleep. I really need to find a quiet apartment otherwise I’ll be dead in about two months. I hate those people living above me. It’s really no fun if you’re going to bed at 11 but have to lie awake till 4 in the morning because those bastards are blasting the latest techno hits. Damn, I think I need matches to keep my eyes open.

I got a huge package from OCS today. What a delight. Got Betsuma 12 (one more issue and Takanashi Mitsuba’s new series starts!!), the latest two Nana (Yazawa Ai) tankoubon, Gouhou Drug 2, Newtype 12 with .hack//Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu on the cover aaaand the X calendar for 2003. I haven’t opened the calendar yet but it looks a bit different than this year’s huuuge wall calendar. The new one’s a desk calendar which is quite practical because I have only very little free space left on my walls.
I had to go to my media seminar after I got the package but I opened the package and started to read the 6th Nana tankoubon. Aah what a mistake! I almost missed my bus… that manga is so addictive and as I don’t buy Cookie regularly, I’m always anxious to get to read the new tankoubon.
Just had a quick peek into Betsuma 12 because I haven’t even finished reading Betsuma 11 (yeah yeah, university students have absolutely no time, see?). I did flip through Newtype attentively though and YES! there will be a new .hack TV anime starting on January 8. I don’t have too many good feelings about that series though… I don’t like the Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu manga to much because it’s more of a parody manga and I don’t expect the same-titled anime series to be much different. The characters look too young, too. And what I’ll really miss is that serious, mysterious atmosphere of .hack//SIGN.
Wolf’s Rain, a new anime TV series that’ll also start in January, looks pretty promising though. I’m defnitely looking forward to watch that show.

Amy’s back! I had intended to post an Amy-poking message here to make you blog again because I’ve started to miss you. Ah yes, that lovely smell of Japanese manga magazines *_* My mother always thinks I’m crazy when she sees me holding my beloved magazines to my nose to inhale that scent of… adventure, angst, cuteness and dokidoki -_-;; Btw, if you like Yasei no bara, you should really try to get some of Katsumoto Kasane’s other manga, Amy. I can recommend Sono te o dokero (8 tankoubon) and its spin-off Oretachi o tenshi to yobu na (2 tankoubon). Her series that ran in Asuka before Yasei no bara was Hikaru no ko. I liked that one too, even though it featured less bishounen than her earlier titles. It’s a really cute love story with a bit of the usual Katsumoto angst, something very nice for cold and rainy November evenings^^

I’m longing for a nice weekend with lots of sleep but the truth is, even when the weekend is here, I’ll get very little sleep ;_; A few weeks ago I was complaining how lonely I was here but now I’ve sort of established a stable circle of friends who drag me to parties and bars with them. That’s not really a bad thing. Not at all actually. On Saturday morning, I and one of my best friends here will go to Saarbrücken (city south of T., very close to France) to visit another friend of ours. We’ll also watch the English-language version of The chamber of secrets. I’m so looking forward to that! The German dubbing was quite bad (well done, but the voices just don’t fit the characters especially if you’re used to the English (i.e. original) actors’ voices from the first Harry Potter movie – I refused to watch it in German) and I can’t wait to watch the film without having to frown upon all those strange dub voices ^^;

Oh and merry! I’ll get my CD package tomorrow, I’m so excited!! And on their Club Quattro oneman merry announced they plan a oneman show at Nippon Seinenkan and the release of a full album for next spring. How great is that?!

music:::baroque – Aimai Drastic Number

I was a happy person because uni was stressful but funny, got mail from my mum and `kane and I also got a phonecall from my mum telling me my merry CD plus various other cool music has arrived. But then… I checked my mails from the merry ML and OH NO, the mp3 whoring continues >___< See, there's that girl who posted a thank you message to the person who provided MP3s of the new merry CD and her last sentence reads: ‘I’m only missing a couple Merry Mp3s… poo. –;’
HELLO??? It’s not a fucking goal to obtain every single MP3 of a band, that’s not a damn great deal anyway if you know how to deal with peer to peer programmes. If you were a real fan, you’d try to buy their CDs.
Yes, I absolutely hate that sort of people. Can’t they just go away and listen to… Dir en grey or something? Can’t they leave us innocent, honest, CD-buying, Nero-worshipping merry fans alone? Can’t they at least spare a public place like an ML from their stupid bullshit?
For a short moment I considered mailing that girl privately. But then again, will she even understand? I think not.
Bah.

music:::Idlewild – These wooden ideas

Oh, I’m okay again, thank you. You know what girls do when they’re highly annoyed, don’t you? Yes, go shopping.
Which is what I did, even though I didn’t really ‘go’, I just turned on my laptop and placed my orders at amazon and cdjapan. Will get loads of lovely stuff soon, I hope.

The arrival of silly merry fangirlism is a wee bit irritating, though. I hope it’ll go away or something because I’m damn protective of my favourite bands. *shields Nero from Mp3 whores’ views* As I’ve said on several occasions, I don’t like that kind of people. I didn’t really expect them to become interested in merry, but it was kind of inevitable now wasn’t it. Still, they make my eyebrows twitch in sheer disgust.
(That’s so me, isn’t it – overreacting on every occasion.)

Saw Get Backers, finally! ‘Twas quite good, will continue to watch it.

Still haven’t had the guts to watch RahXephon 26. What is there left to enjoy when it’s over? The most obvious thing: buy merchandizing and everything else that has the word ‘RahXephon’ on it. That’s the twisted way of capitalism. There’s nothing they won’t make you think you have to buy if you love something. Second, rewatch the series. Third, find people equally obessed with RahXephon.
One: Ordered the Prelude DVD and the Sound Drama CD today. Will also buy manga, novels (even if it’s just for the pretty cover pics -_-;;), artbook, soundtracks, Shimono Hiro-kun’s underwear and everything else more or less available.
Second: That’ll have to wait cause having a photographic memory does have it’s disadvantages, too. At the moment, I remember to many details to really enjoy rewatching the whole show.
Third: Hardest thing on the list. The world is saturated with strangely unintelligent anime fanboys/girls (’strangely’ because they seem to know how to operate computers and such), to use RahXephon vocabulary. I know intelligent anime fans exist, but do any of them like RahXephon? Finding someone sharing my obsession would be nice…

I need to go to bed otherwise I’ll miss counting things in Japanese tomorrow. Hora, asoko ni ippiki no neko ga iru yo~n! …or something. No, that’s nothing I learnt in class, but ippiki must be one of the funniest sounding words ever. Roppiki and happiki sound even cooler. Counting countries is damn cool, too. Ikkakoku, nikakoku, sankakoku. The fun stops at languages though. Ikkakokugo, nikakokugo… Say that at 9 in the morning and tell me how you don’t twist your tongue -_-

music:::my blood cooking

I’m pretty damn pissed off >_< Why do I even blog then? To have some record of my anger for later. To let off some steam here because there's nobody else around at the moment.
I don’t have one big reason to be so annoyed, in fact there are several small things that happened today that made me feel this way.

Can all those newbies please stop referring to themselves by -chan and -san?! Someone’s got to tell them it’s a biiig no-no, I learnt that after like, 2 days after discovering anime and manga >_< Damn them all.
Stop complaining about websites using frames and graphics larger than *gasps* 30 kb. Buy a new computer or just live with it.
Why don’t they sell that pretty grey Idlewild shirt anymore?? It was the only reason I wanted to get a credit card ;_;
Tomorrow’s Sunday. I hate Sundays with a passion. It’s the day you should relax but instead keep worrying what could go wrong in the new week. Saturdays are so much better. Friday nights too.
I don’t want to watch RahXephon 26 because it’s the last episode and then it’s OVER ;_; I decided that it definitely beats Eva for me. Yes, after 5 years of Eva being my favourite pseudo-philosophical (or whatever) mecha anime, I’ve come to realise there can only be one: RahXephon. *burns Eva artbooks and plasters walls with Ayato posters*

I’m seriously sorry. For everything.

music:::some jazzy stuff (Peanuts BGM)

Had an awesome night. Last weekend, my friend and I complained how there’s so little to do here on the weekends and planned to go drink some cocktails on the next weekend. ‘Next weekend’ was yesterday, so we met with three other people from our Japanese class and went to a cocktail bar first. The place was packed. Me and my friend had two Bailey’s each, I kind of couldn’t follow what the others had because they drank frighteningly fast o_O Then we left because the bar started to get really really loud and smokey and basically too packed. So we found a rather cool bar/pub/cinema. The walls were painted dark blue and there were posters of all sorts of alternative and heavy metal bands. They played quite acceptable music (okay okay, there was some Nickelback inbetween and I was trying hard to overhear it (but failed)). Two of my friends had absinthe, then I passed their offers to have one too after I saw what the stuff did to one of them ^^;;
We caught the last bus home, me and my friend. It’s kind of strange, but after only so little time we’re starting to become best friends already. She was shocked when I told her that I wanted to switch unis and begged me to stay ^^; We have a lot in common but we’re also quite different. We talked so much yesterday… when my sister called me this morning, I was all hoarse and stuff and could hardly talk ^^;;

I watched episode one of Spiral yesterday. It was only so-so. I’ll watch one or two more episodes and then I’ll decide whether to drop the series or not. I also saw the 2nd episode of GitS Stand Alone Complex. I’m still not hooked, really. The animation is absolutely great but the story… all this brain transplantation stuff is starting to get boring already.
Episode 2 of Gundam Seed was quite okay, I’ll definitely keep watching that anime.
I’ll try to finish RahXephon today. At the moment I’m trying to decide if I like RahXephon better than Evangelion, one of my all-time favourites…