Re: May I have this dance

Some notes from the Panda General.

I have great timing, since semi was last friday (mind you I didn’t go cause I’m an antisocial emo person.)

Anyway, I didn’t look over it a lot, so if it’s badly written, my apologies. I will fix it.

Obviously, because I’ve never been to a school dance, I wouldn’t know what it was like, so I just assumed it involved a lot of people talking, and a lot of loud music, and a lot of people in dresses and suits.

This part of the story was set when Kino and Yuki are 2nd years (Grade 11) at Grandia School. Around third term. Essentially it’s a very prestigious school with a lot of rich kids, and a few students who are on scholarships, Kino being one of them. Basically this is the beginning of a lot of shit that happens later.

Originally, I was planning for Kino to end up not going because Yuki was already taken or busy. It be something like, he was busy so he told Kino he wouldn’t be able to come. But then I didn’t know how to make her cry (yeah I’m mean, I wanted to make her cry.) So I went with the he was already taken route cause then I could have someone else make her cry instead of Yuki.

Someone who read the story commented on how he always says she’s cute. The main reason was because I suck at writing so I repeat the same word OVER again. Really need to fix that. Uhh but then I thought later maybe it was a form of habit, because Kino does really see herself as a person but a monster, or a burden. Man, I’m making him out to be a sweet person with a girly name.

Like I mentioned last time, everyone’s names are four letters long XD Except Nadako…and Keith who only makes a minor appearance.
Here’s a list of everyone mentioned in this story FULL name:
Mayu Goldsmith
Nadako Fubayashi
Rolland Eric Lea
Keith Staedtler
So Eric’s actual name is Rolland, but again, four letter short names are my thing.

Since I skipped the 1st term part of the story, I’ll give a brief descriptions of the characters
Mayu: daughter of some goverment official in the states. Used to be Yuki’s fiance but yeah that didn’t turn out well. It was an arranged marriage.
Nadako: daughter of a Japanese family who won the lottery.
Eric: Son of the director of Grandia College (the school). The school’s Prince.
Keith: Mayu’s stalker, he’s fairly rich too.

(to be continued…)

恋空

I have two tests tomorrow, and what better way to screw myself over then to watch a movie that makes me cry. Koizora is a love story that was originally published on a popular cellphone blog in Japan. It was written by Mika, who says the story is based of her own experiences. In summary, Mika (the main female character named after the author,) fell in love with a school mate named Hiroki, or simply Hiro. Throughout the novel, and movie, Mika had to face many trials such as rape, abortion, and betrayal. But with the help of Hiro, family, and friends, she manages to overcome these trials. The movie started off very light and happy, but it was downhill from there. It was very emotional. Although I cried at the end, it was still really sad to watch. Especially, when I found out half way through (took a break) that the story was based on the author’s experiences. If I was to compare this with any other drama, it is similar to 1 Litre of Tears in terms of depressing factor, but focusing on romance.

Overall, I really liked watching it. It’s a nice shock to the systems, not sure if that’s good for me or not but we’ll see ^^p

Here’s one of the insert songs that played in the movie. Warning, there may be spoilers.
Heavenly Days

Melancholic Tears of Joy

Ikimono Gakari “Planetarium”

Earlier in the year I posted about their other single “Hana wa Sakura Kimi wa Utsukushi”. Ikimono Gakari’s latest single “Planetarium” definitely surpasses “Hana wa Sakura Kimi wa utsukushi” and is one of their better ballads. This song is amazingly beautiful. I cried listening to it cause it just felt so reassuring for some odd reason. Even the PV is a good watch. Kiyoe’s voice fits the song very well and easy on the ears. The piano gives a nice starry like quality, and the the strings make me feel like I’m soaring in the night sky, which I find very calming for someone who’s angsty on a daily bases. Unlike most of Ikimono Gakari’s other songs, this song doesn’t have a harmonica. Although I’m not complaining because the harmonica would just change the tone of the song completely. Overall, great song to listen to.

Also, WordPress is toolish for not letting me post the song file.

So happy~

It has just been released today by Square Enix that Kingdom Hearts Re: Chains of Memories shall be coming to North America in December.

As a Kingdom Hearts fan, I am extremely delighted by the news because I’ve wanted to play the game however could not do to language barriers. If anything, this game has become top priority on my must game list for Christmas. So excited, so excited, so excited, SO EXCITED OMFG!!!! *explodes in fangirl excitment*

For those of you who do not know, Kingdom Hearts Re: Chains of Memories is a recreation of Kingdom Hearts: Chains of Memories for the PS2 which was released about two years ago in Japan, along with Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix+. Therefore, the game shall follow the same storyline as Chains of Memories, but in full 3D along with extra bonus.
info: here

Story time! (As told by General)

It is story time with panda general-sama. Please grab a seat and some tissues, because Breaking Dawn is epic. Warning to all fangirls: Edward and Jacob do not sleep together cause Jacob turned Edward down for his loli fetish.

“Yeah we’re married!”
then they go on honeymoon
“lets do it again!”
“no you’re arm is broken”
“I don’t care ><”
“dude just shut up!”
“uhh i feel sick”
“what?”
“Oh woopdedoo I’m going to have a kid!”
“…….”
Almost dies cause kid starts breaking every single bone in her body cause she’s a tool. Kid is born given a ridiculously dumb name (reneesme) Jacob thinks Bella’s dead so tries to kill kid. When he sees kid he falls in love with it (wait….newborn baby…and around 18 year old guy…)
“Oh yeah…I wasn’t dead, I was turning intoa vampire…”
“it’s ok…I love your kid!”
“oh that’s great, now there won’t be vampy vs werewolf battle!”
“yeah I know!”
“Now I have to go kill something so I don’t eat you bai bai”
Edward takes Bella to go eat. They eat, and then Bella and kid are together “yeah love kid!”
Then italian vampires go “that kid is evil and dangerous we have to kill her!”
“Well thanks for taking the time to come over and try and kill my kid. Here’s a present”
italian vampires get owned because bella has special mind powers to make you unable to use powers (think njammer except…vampire jammer or geass cancellor)
So the italian vampire end up leaving for home and giving up. wait…they didn’t do anything!
Oh and while all this is happening you find out kid can send images to people’s brains by touching you with it’s cheek.
Jasper and Alice come back (wait when did they leave)
and…
trying to remember what the wiki post said…
ok edward reads bella’s mind
the end

great book. Suggest everyone who is broken like Lelouch to read it.

This isn’t a game PS3

Recently I watched the anime Xam’d: Lost Memories, which was released about a week ago on the PS3 movie store. Although, this attempt to get my to buy the damn thing didn’t work, it’s still a pretty good try. Enough bashing about the PS3 and how it lost Final Fantasy XIII and on to what I was actually going to talk about.

Xam’d: Lost Memories is an interesting anime done by Bones. This new title is to celebrate Bones 10 year anniversary and it definitely shows. When watching this I got the same feeling of Eureka 7, Nausicaa, Escaflowne all in one episode. Based on the anime community’s reaction, the anime also gave off the same vibes as Last Exile and Rahxephon. The animation quality and character designs were both strikingly similar to other Bones’ titles mentioned earlier and thus, I personally felt a bit nostalgic. The story started off really well, and left me wanting the next episode right now. Also, the opening song is addicting. I was surprised that the band was actually a Japanese band because the English in the song was very good (the song is in English.)

In summary, Akiyuki is a male high school student who lives on Sentan island, an island which is neutral towards the Northern and Southern nations (think ORB from Gundam SEED.) Outside of this somewhat peaceful island, the North and the South are at war with each other. One day, Akiyuki and his school mates were caught in a terrorist bombing incident at the school bus stop. When he tried to see if any body in the bus was alive, he encountered the girl he helped and coincidently was the person who bombed the bus. The girl suddenly gave him a special power that transformed him into an unknown creature…

Although the story’s direction is unclear, the first episode left me with a really good impression about this show. Plus, the opening song is just <3

Opening theme: “Shut up and Explode” by Boom Boom Satellite

Good thing it is over

Soul Eater ep 14 summary

Oh God this episode was funny. I won’t really do a summary since it’ll spoil the story for those who aren’t following the manga, or haven’t watched the episode yet. But I would like to comment on Soul’s act of “cheating.”

“The purpose of an exam is to test what you have learned in the year, not to test how well you can cheat.”
Hmmm, what happens if the only thing you learned was how to cheat? I guess that means you are screwed like Soul.

Cheating, taught to us as an illegal and intolerable action by those higher up. But to some of us in this capitalist world, we believe a good mark essentially determines our future. In that sense, a test or an exam could be considered as a life or death situation. You fail the English exam, you have to retake English. You fail a bunch of test, you bring down your average, and therefore Universities won’t accept because they do not believe you have the capability to survive their courses. In a life or death situation, one would be desperate to live usually. For example, if one were to be under threat of being attacked by a stranger, one would either defend themselves, or run and call for help, or be smart and pull of some strategic evasive maneuvers. Now lets put this into a chess analogy. Say the bishop is an exam or a test. This bishop is in check with you the king. Since the bishop is in check with the king, the problem must be addressed first and cannot be avoided or else you lose the game because your king died. Similarly to how you can’t avoid exams. In a game of chess, preparation to defend the king should have been done before hand or else you are a very bad chess player. This way solving a situation like a check becomes less problematic. Now in this situation, there are three ways of resolving a check from the bishop 1) block the bishop 2) take the bishop , or 3) move the king. These resolutions have pros and cons such as resolving the problem, and advancing your own forces, to breaking up your defensive formation, or losing a valuable piece.

So the question I ask you is to cheat, or not to cheat?

Uni Hopping

Is that even how you spell hopping?

University of Calgary
-Scattered: buildings are scattered, not centralized.
-Standard facilities
-DDR club
-Bubble tea in cafeteria
-Similar to McMaster

University of Alberta
-Scattered
-buildings are a combination of old and new
-Pharmacy building has nuclear reactor (that sounds like fun)
-Residence: sketch
-Profs are more mac oriented
-Panda as their mascot
-T&T at the West Edmonton Mall
-Similar to McMaster

In Alberta you do not have to pay PST when shopping.

University of British Columbia
-Flexibility in terms of combinations of programs
-Large scattered
-buildings designed to represent the faculty. (Ex, science building is supposed to be a eukaryote cell…)
-Residence: nice
-Entire campus has wi-fi (including rose garden, and asian garden which are very cool places to study.)
-T&T is accessible in Richmond
-Hosting the Hockey event for the 2010 Olympics (don’t know how, but that’s what the tour guide said.)
-Similar to Queens/UfT

University of Victoria
-Bunnies
-Community: buildings are all within the same radius. My Dad’s classmate said that it reminded him of the Roman Empire. Yeah…more like the Bunny Empire.
-Bunnies
-Nice environment
-Bunnies
-Entire campus has Wi-fi
-Bunnies
(There were a lot…of rabbits…)
-Similar to McGill

Simon Fraser University
-Building: one large complex on a mountain.
-Allows for flexibility in schedule
-Co-op program
-Course taken on exchanges do not affect GPA but do count as a credit.
-Tri-semester system (US)
-All classes are held in the same building. Each faculty has a branch/wing.
-Residence: all single, brand new.
-Entire campus has wi-fi
-Bubble Tea present on campus
-T&T in one of the shopping plazas near by.

May add on later if I remember extra stuff.

13 滅びし煌きの都市

A while ago I mentioned Yoko Shimomura released a compilations of orchestrated versions of pieces in a CD called Dramatica. I love listening through the entire CD. It is refreshing, and sometimes even calming to listen to.

滅びし煌きの都市 – 下村陽子Yoko Shimomura (WordPress won’t even let me post imeem shit?!)

This song was…I feel that this song really sticks with me. Although, I love all the other songs and would play it on repeat to no ends, I felt this one was one of the non-Kingdom Hearts I enjoyed the most. When I listen to this song, I picture a person in a city, surrounded by people but lonely at heart, searching, searching for something, or someone. That’s the kind of feeling I get from it

With just the strings section and piano, it gives the piece a very lonely feel. The rising chord progressions (imperfect cadence like) with an added crescendo at 1:24 moves the phrase forward, as if it was going somewhere. Yet, instead of continuing on, the piano begins playing a repeated passage, as if aimlessly walking in a circle. The idea of someone aimlessly walking in a circle is also touched in the main theme where the phrases never really end, but just start from the beginning of the theme, or the same repeating passage. It is evident that the feelings of the song wants to go somewhere as it continues to crescendo throughout the entire piece.

That made me seem incredibly emo but it’s summer…

Cardcaptor Sakura sequal

For those of you who watched the Japanese version of Cardcaptor Sakura or read the manga, the story ends with basically SyaoranxSakura.

Now ten years later, the latest chapter of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (chapter 189) has revealed that Tsubasa, and xxxHolic are actually the sequals to the original Cardcaptor Sakura series.

I shall warn you now, if you have not completed the Tsubasa OVA, I suggest that you stop reading now.

I will start with an idea I thought of while I quickly attempt to repair my brain from the damage CLAMP has dealt once again.

I noticed that in Tsubasa, the theme of there being two of the same people has been continuously reappearing throughout the story. Though xxxHolic is a separate manga in itself, Marudashi and Morodashi are seen as a pair. Which reinforces the theme from within xxxHolic since the Tsubasa and xxxHolic plot cross paths with each other. Since I have not read enough of xxxHolic, I can not specifically draw other examples. However, since the main point of this post is about Tsubasa…

In Tsubasa, there are the vampire twins, these twins are mentioned early in the manga, and then finally make their appearance in volume 13-14. Later, it is revealed that there are two Syaoran, one being the original and the other being a clone. After that, we discovered that Fai had a twin brother.

I have to say that Fai’s background story is the most complicated story I have ever read.

Fai is not actually Fai but Sai, and that he and his brother (Fai) were both imprisoned in a place where neither one of them could escape. One was placed in a tower, and one was placed at the bottom of the tower, with a wall surrounding the area. They were placed there because it was thought that having twins was a curse, and that in order to get rid of the curse, only one of the twins could free themselves. Eventually Fai told Sai to save himself, but Sai did not want to leave his brother behind, so he promised his brother that he will leave this cruel prison as Fai instead, and will one day come and save him. Thus, Sai became Fai. Therefore, the pattern was not just about twins, but the idea that one was a fake, and one was the original. However, maru and moro, and the vampire twins obviously do not apply to this idea.

Finally, there is the whole idea of Sakura’s soul and body, as well as there being a clone of Sakura and an original who is trapped somewhere between dimensions.

After the whole chess game arc, Sakura’s body and soul were separated. Her body remained with Syaoran (the real one), Fai, Kurogane, and Mokona, but her soul was lost, or so what I understood from the manga. This is where CLAMP starts not making any sense. Everything from here on is based on my own interpretation and may be COMPLETLY WRONG.

Once passing the Fai story arc, they finally land in Tokyo, the Tokyo Kurogane knew. There, Syaoran searches for Sakura through the power of the Cherry Blossom tree. However, the clone Syaoran appears as well, and he and the real Syaoran have a duel. This duel led to the death of Sakura, who ended up being a clone. The gang finally decide to search for Sakura, whether it be the real Sakura, or the soul of the clone Sakura that went missing. Either way they are both missing and needs to be found and it hurts my brain trying to understand what happened.

After that, CLAMP kept throwing plot twist after plot twist, and finally, it ended with…ANOTHER plot twist. I went to livejournal to see other fan’s reactions, and they are the same as mine “Why CLAMP!?” there was one interesting comment about how Syaoran is pulling an Oedepuis. Lets hope that that is not the case and that the Sakura he saw in the last page of chapter 189 is a different Sakura, who just ended up at the same place for the same reasons as him.

All Coloured Manga scans are credited to Hernia @ livejournal.