Densha Otoko

Recently I found a movie that was based on a manga that was based off of a light novel, or in some other similar sequence.
The movie is called Densha Otoko or Train man, now because I am a guy most people will assume this is a funny movie or an action movie of some sort, but no sorry to disappoint but this is a love movie.
So Densha Otoko is basically about an otaku guy who meets a "high class" girl on a train when he saves her from a drunken idiot. He falls in love with the girl, but because he is an otaku he has no confidence to ask the girl out . To fix his confidence issue he turns towards forums online.
When he states his situation on the forums random people from around Japan respond to him and push him to ask the girl out. As the movie progresses you watch as he turns into a clean cut guy that eventually does get with the girl. The guy is backed up by many many people who post on the threads, but he is backed up by 7 main posters. The posters all have their own problems, but they try to escape their problems by backing up the Train man.
Eventually the train man and his girl "Hermes'' run into problems where he is trying to hard and she starts to get uncomfortable, but they eventually work things out. At the end of the movie they end up together, and the posters leave the thread in order to fix their own lives.

I read the manga first before I watched the movie and I loved the manga, because it was a simple love story.  I thought that the train man was a good character, but at the same time he made me hate him from time to time because he was such a wuss. He had a lot of problems regarding his confidence which made me sad and mad. The female lead "Hermes" is not that interesting in my opinion, I feel she is only needed in order to help the male lead develop his character.
Out of all the characters I enjoyed the 7 posters the most, they were an important part of the movie that really pushed train mans character constantly. They were not only helpful they played important roles as comedy relief to balance out the straight sappiness from the train man and his true love.
The overall movie is done in a interesting way because of the fact that they have to include some way of showing forum usage. It has many moments of romance and a few comedy bits from time to time, but it really is a light hearted love story that I believe many people will enjoy.
I would definitely recommend people to at least watch it, than they can decide themselves whether or not to get it, I probably will.
There are different versions of media based on the original story there is the manga, the movie, the light novel, and a drama version based off the movie.

Train Man Trailer

Densha Otoko Drama

Densha Otoko Manga Version 1

Densha Otoko Manga Version 2

Vending Machines

Japan is always interesting, the country can take something so common and turn it into something so strange. Vending machines are common everywhere around the world, usually in america they will serve food and drinks, but watch as I introduce some strange vending machines that Japan has,
1. Car vending machines
2. Vegetable vending machines
3. Cigarettes vending machines
4. Porn vending machines
5. Egg Vending Machines

All kinds of these different machines are everywhere around Japan most of them are pretty normal selling drinks, food, cigarettes, and other normal items, but once in a while you will see these weird machines in different places. 

During my 10th grade trip to Japan, my friend and I encountered one of those vending machines that sell porn and we comtemplated on buying something but we felt a bit embarrassed to buy porn in such a public place.

Hello Kitty gone to far

So I got food poisoning on Friday which led to an entire day of vomiting and bathroom trips on Saturday...which was great....but during one of my moments getting sick I was reminded of another thing that gets me sick to my stomach. 

And here we have it HELLO KITTY overboard!!!! These are a few items inspired by the Asian cartoon icon.

Hello Kitty Exhaust Pipe

A Hello Kitty themed house

If this does not prove obsession I am not sure what will...

There are so much more interesting hello kitty items all over the world, thousands and thousands of ordinary household items have been inspired by this cutesy Asian cartoon character. Of course the obsession exists here as well, but in Japan and Taiwan you see girls completely covered in hello kitty items.

Genre Pt2

Mystery: Titles that involve unexplained events, main characters will attempt to find the causes of it.
Psychological: Titles that deal with the philosophy of a state of mind in most cases detailing abnormal psychology.
Romance: Any love related story.
School Life: Having a major setting of the story deal with some type of school.
Sci-Fi: Science fiction, titles involving twists on technology and other science related phenomena which are contrary or stretches of the modern day scientific world.
Seinen: Titles meant for young men targets the age 18-25, has stories that address issues of adulthood.
Shotacon: Representing a sexual attraction to young or under-age boys.
Shoujo: Work intended for females involves a lot of romance and strong character development.
Shoujo Ai: Less extreme version of Yuri "Girl Love"
Shounen: Work intended for males involves a lot of fighting and/or violence.
Shounen Ai: Less extreme version of Yaoi "Boy Love"
Slice of Life: A genre representing day to day tribulations of one or many characters. Challenges or events can happen in real life and the stories are usually but no all the time, mirroring our own world and timeline.
Smut: Deals with series that are profane or offensive, particularly with regards to sexual content.
Sports: Titles that are related to plots involving sports
Supernatural: Titles where amazing and unexplained powers or events that defy the laws of physics happen.
Tragedy: Titles that contain events that result in a great loss misfortune.
Yaoi: Titles about relationships between guys
Yuri: Titles about relationships between girls

Now thats the end of all the genres.
Most works fall under a few of these genres at a time, because some of them can work with each other, now I hope this helps remove the fear that some people have of unknown genres and will entice people into reading new titles.

Genres Pt1

So as I was reading some random mangas this week I have realized how hard it is for people to get past all the mainstream manga titles and really enjoy all kinds of manga. The main problem here is not that mainstream titles are just that good or its hard to find other titles. The problem with the whole situation is that people do not understand the other genres because of this so many titles are passed on.
An understanding of most people is that if I do not know what this is than I probably will not want to read it. Now there are people who do look towards new and different titles, but not that many.
I am going to list some genres and give a quick description of each:
Action: Titles that entitle fighting, violence, chaos, and fast paced movement.
Adult: Titles that have content meant for adults, usually has intense violence or graphic sexual content and nudity.

Adventure: plots that have to do with characters going on an adventure or something like it.
Comedy: Any manga that has humorous situation or satirical in tone, usually has happy resolutions.
Doujinshi: Fan based work that is inspired by official anime or manga, not to be grouped with original works
Drama: Titles that bring emotional responses. instilling sadness or tension.
Ecchi: Titles borderline hentai and non hentai, ecchi will refer to fan service put in to attract a certain group of fans.
Fantasy: Any titles that involve but not limited to magic, dream world, fairy tales, myths
Gender Bender: Male characters dressed up as girls or turning into girls or Female characters dressing up as guys or turning into guys.
Harem: Titles involving one male or one female character surrounded by many characters of the opposite sex.
Historical: Titles having to do with old or ancient times.
Horror: Titles associated with stories of fear or shock, painful emotions of dread, terror, detestation, and abhorrence.
Josei: Targets woman 18-30 romance is less idealized and more realistic, the stories are explicit and mature.
Lolicon: Represents a sexual attraction to young or under age girls
Martial Arts: Titles with a martial arts theme.
Mature: Contains subjects that are too extreme for people under the age of 17, may contain intesne violence, blood and gore, sexual content, or strong language.
Mecha: Titles with large robotic machine themes.

To be continued for rest of the genres....

Halloween MV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF2II4TooWM
So this video is from a Japanese pop star, she is pretty good she has a nice voice and she looks alright. Her music brings out a kind of darkness that I enjoy, this specific video has a Halloween theme to it so it fits the day i suppose.

 

Most of her works have a sort of goth approach in my opinion...well not really super dark goth, it is like a lighter version of goth and she incorporates dark colors, dark images, and dark themes to her style of music and video styles.

Let me just introduce some basic information about her if you want to learn about her a bit more: 

Real Name: Tomoko Kawase

Stage Name: Tommy february⁶ (former) Tommy heavenly⁶(current)

Other band Affiliations: The Brilliant Green

Genre: JPop, JRock, Rock

Years Active: 2007-Present

Record company: Warner Music Japan

Top 5 Horror manga

So these have not been a good few weeks. To any people who actually read my blog it has been around three weeks or so since my last update, and I apologize deeply.
To cover a few of the big events that happened to me personally for the last few weeks, a loss of a loved one, a international trip,and a traditional Buddhist funeral.
Well enough about that I decided to finish off the month with a post based on my top 5 horror manga!
These are 5 of the weirdest, freakiest, scariest manga I have read in my life. The horror genre is pretty simple it contains something that is generally freaky or scary to regular society.
My top 5 are actually interchangeable because they are all pretty gruesome in my opinion.

#1 Deadman Wonderland

#2 Mouryou no Yurikago

#3 Bio-Meat: Nectar

#4 Franken Fran

#5 Pure Trance
Each of them have some kind of scary or freaky aspect to it and added along with it is the usual weirdness that comes with manga.
Dead man Wonderland: features a prison for convicts and special prisoners with powers to manipulate their blood. As you read this manga you learn of prison conspiracies and bear witness to the gruesome deaths of many prisoners and guards, I must say when it comes to death this author presents it in a sick way, we see people being hacked into pieces.
Mouryou no Yurikago: is a typical zombie situation. A high school class is trapped on a cruise ship with the rest of its passengers. The cruise ship overturns and is now upside down, normally this situation is already terrifying, but as the survivors of the first disaster try to recuperate they are attacked by what seems to be zombies.
Bio-Meat: Nectar: is a apocalyptic world when a new food source created turns on its creators and start to attack and consume humans. The main characters a group of kids try desperately to fight away these creatures and live their lives, by the third arc of this manga most of Japan is taken over by the creatures.
Franken Fran: is manga version of Dr Frankenstein, or more of a parody of the famous mad scientist. The girl has the looks of a Frankenstein and is a mad scientist. Every chapter has some kind of horrific experiment that she conducts either of her own free will or of someone requesting an odd surgery or such.
Pure Trance: now this is an odd manga. It has an odd art style that I find crazy. It reminds me of a urban graffiti style. The story itself is so odd and mind blowing weird that I can not explain it. Best way to understand it is to read it.
Well if you do decide to read these titles have a fun time and remember none of this is real....I hope....x_x

I'm sorry

This post is to apologize about this week, even though I have been slow and inconsistent with my blog posts I am trying to learn to fix this habit and start posting more frequently in a more consistent manner. However, this week has just bitch slapped me...and hard. This last week has already been a hard week with several tests and quizzes that have been difficult to study for, but the worst part about this entire week was on Friday.
October 1st, 2010, Friday my grandmother in Taiwan passed away in the hospital. I do not know most of the details behind everything, but I know that she was admitted to the hospital less than a week ago last Sunday. Even though she was not always in my life and I did not know her too well, she was an important person in my family and to me. This following weekend I will be travelling back to Taiwan to attend the funeral.

Vinyl Collection...!!!

This blog is not exactly only specified to anime and manga, even though all the previous posts have been about manga. So I want to bring up another passion of mine that I work on and off depending on my money situation, my toy collection!!!

I don't mean stuffed animals or action figures...well it is like a combination of both I guess, I collect vinyl toys that are like action figures and stuffed animals in a way, I guess the best way to describe it would be the texture and style of an action figure, but sometimes the style and look of a stuffed animal.

Vinyl toys are japanese toys that are modeled after animes and other random things. There are plenty of different kinds of toys there are large models, small models, black and white, multi colored, mobile models, and standing models. 

There are no specific models I aim for because I like a majority of the models I have seen when I go through stores and markets like Frank and Sons.

Right now I have around seven models, four of the models are from the same collection another two are from the same collection as well, and the last one is a random model I found. I have the TofuBot, Mozzerella, Bulleto, Latte, Miruku, Labbit, and Munny. 

(picture follow what I listed ahead)

The milk themed vinyl toys are all part of the same collection from the Tokidoki site (http://www.tokidoki.it/shop/) now even though most people think that this is for girls, but I love the art that these toys are based off of and I don't really care what people say. 

Most of these toy prices are based off size, artist, and design. I still remember that a model that I wanted to get what about $150 and its around the same size and the Bulleto model I have which was only around $30.

Well as I increase my collection and discover new artists who create models I will post more about it.

Volume 2: Yotsubato!

So I decided to continue my posts on Yotsubato! This is the continuation of the Yotsubato! series volume 2 to be specific. The plot of volume 2 is just a continuation of the everyday life of Yotsuba. 

"Yotsuba & Drawing"  (よつばとおえかき "Yotsuba to Oekaki

"Yotsuba & Revenge" (よつばと復讐 "Yotsuba to Fukushū

"Yotsuba & Cake" (よつばとケーキ "Yotsuba to Kēki

"Yotsuba & "No Bother"" (よつばとどんまい "Yotsuba to Donmai

"Yotsuba & Pools" (よつばとプール "Yotsuba to Pūru

"Yotsuba & the Frog" (よつばとかえる "Yotsuba to Kaeru

"Asagi & Souvenirs" (あさぎのおみやげ "Asagi no Omiyage

Volume 2 begins with Yotsuba trying to draw her dad's friend Jumbo, but unable to draw him on paper she tries again on the street in front of her house. As she draws Jumbos outline it ends up looking like the outline of a murder victim. (>.<) After finish drawing she meets a new friend Miura chan who is Ena's friend, if you remember Ena she is Yotsuba's neighbor. So Yotsuba, Ena, and Miura decide go to the park to draw together

 

The next chapter shows how easily children are influenced by the media. Yotsuba, Jumbo, and Mr. Koiwai are watching a gangster movie together and suddenly Yotsuba runs out the room and gets a water gun. She starts to shoot everyone around and reciting lines from the movie she just watched.

 

The next day Yotsuba is playing at the neighbors with Ena and Miura. Ena's Mother suddenly decides she wants to eat cake and send the three girls to go buy cake for all four of them. This chapter really highlights Yotsuba's quirkyness when she suddenly starts singing a cake song, and yelling OLE every so often. 

Chapter eleven focuses on a new concept Yotsuba learns "Donmai" which translates into "no bother". Mr. Koiwai takes a nap due to several days of work and lets Yotsuba do anything she wants. Yotsuba starts wandering around the house doing random activities, towards the end of the chapter she draws all over her fathers face and than tries to erase the ink by rubbing mayonaise on his face. The last line she says is "Donmai" and she falls asleep next to her father.

One day Mr. Koiwai found some coupons to a water park, Jumbo tries using this as a chance to get closer with the eldest Ayase sister. When the eldest sister is not able to go, they end up going to the community pool instead. When they arrive at the pool we discover that Mr. Koiwai, Jumbo, and Fuka can't swim, but Yotsuba is an exceptional swimmer. Yotsuba tries to teach them to swim, but her teaching ability failed.

Its either been a day or a few days we are not exactly sure, but we see Yotsuba near a field with a net and a sun hat. Miura sees Yotsuba and asks what Yotsuba is doing. Yotsuba says she is looking for frogs as she goes to the next field, she suddenly slinks back behind Miura. Yotsuba sees a bird repellent thing which is similar to a one eyed person, Yotsuba even refers to it as a person by saying "That guy is looking over here". So a few minutes pass by and Yotsuba catches a big frog and brings it to show the Ayase family. She arrives at the household and tries to show Fuka, but when she refuses Yotsuba takes the frog to Ena instead. After a while Miura shows up with the bird repellent on her head like a mask, she walks upstairs and starts scaring Yotsuba. Ena decides that its unfair and takes the frog to scare Miura. Miura scared witless grabs hold to Yotsuba, Yotsuba freaking out still grabs Ena's favorite teddy bear and tries to whack Miura off, but as she does the bears arm starts to tear. The second to last page has all three of them screaming at the top of their lungs and the last page is Asagi on a beach relaxing.

So the last chapter of volume2 is actually not focused on Yotsuba. This chapter is actually dedicated to Asagi, she just came back from her vacation and the whole chapter is pretty much just the family talking about different things and souvenirs. Yotsuba makes a brief appearance at the end of the chapter, to get a small souvenir from Asagi.

So that's the end of Volume 2, there 8 volumes in total so 6 volumes to go I hope these summaries make you want to read the  manga on your own. (because honestly I think its a lot more enjoyable to read it yourself at least once)

R.I.P. Satoshi Kon

So it has been about a month since the death of director Satoshi Kon, and I wanted to high light some of the titles he created that I personally thought were interesting. Mr. Kon directed a total of six animations, five of the animations were released from 1998-2006, but the last animation will be released posthumously soon in the year 2011. The animations are as listed: "Perfect Blue" (1998), "Millennium Actress" (2001), "Tokyo Godfathers" (2003), "Paranoia Agent" (2004), "Paprika" (2006), and "The Dream Machine" (2011).  Although he released five animations, I have only viewed one of the animations "Paranoia Agent".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-anabfAg06U
Paranoia Agent is about a designer Tsukiko Sagi, a shy character designer who created a popular character, Maromi the pink dog. Tsukiko is under pressure into creating a new character who is as popular as Maromi. As she goes home one night she is attacked by a kid on skates with a bat. Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa, two detectives are assigned to the case, but think that Tsukiko is lying until a second attack is reported. 
As the story progresses several more people are attacked by the assailant, who is appropriately named "Bat Boy". More and more people become aware of "Bat Boy", although the only people that get attacked are people who are in crisis. As time goes by one of the detectives become obsessive about the case of Bat Boy.When Tsukiko is confronted again by the bat boy she realizes that he is a figment of her imagination that she created due to the stress she received from work. When she finally admits the truth behind the lie, "Bat Boy" finally disappears. 
I think one of my favorite points about Satoshi Kon's works are the psychological factor that is played on by him. In several of his works an interesting plot is highlighted by a psychological view that the main character encounters and fights with. 
I do want to one day see all his works, but two of the works that have me captivated with recently is Paprika and The Dream Machine. Paprika has an idea similar to the recent film of Inception, with people going through the dreams of other people. I will provide a better summary of it when I watch it in the near future. I am also anticipating the release of The Dream Machine. I think it will be interesting to see his final work. 

Volume 1: Yotsubato!

Yotsubato! volume 1 was a great beginning of a simple manga, I mean this truly is simplicity at its best. There is no complex story line that makes the reader think constantly about what will happen next, for Yotsubato it is all about going with the flow. Wherever Yotsuba goes and whatever she sees is what that chapter focuses on and although it sounds boring, its not. The whole series is based on the experiences and relationships that Yotsuba gain through each of the chapters. Things like imitating a movie character, and going to the zoo become mini adventures filled with amusement and wonder. Of course, Yotsuba being a five year old makes everything funnier, because she has the mindset of a child going on. 

There are seven chapters in the first volume of Yotsubato! 

1. "Yotsuba & Moving" (よつばとひっこし "Yotsuba to Hikkoshi"^?)
2. "Yotsuba & Manners" (よつばとあいさつ "Yotsuba to Aisatsu"^?, "Yotsuba & Greetings")
3. "Yotsuba & Global Warming" (よつばと地球温暖化 "Yotsuba to Chikyū-Ondanka"^?)
4. "Yotsuba & TV" (よつばとテレビ "Yotsuba to Terebi"^?)
5. "Yotsuba & Shopping" (よつばとかいもの "Yotsuba to Kaimono"^?)
6. "Yotsuba & Cicadas" (よつばとせみとり "Yotsuba to Semitori"^?, "Yotsuba & Cicada-Catching")
7. "Yotsuba & Rain" (よつばとおおあめ "Yotsuba to Ō-Ame"^?, "Yotsuba & Rainstorms")

The story starts out with Yotsuba and her father, Mr. Koiwai, moving into a new neighborhood. The two of them arrive at their new house and meet up with Mr. Koiwai's buddy Jumbo. As Yotsuba helps her father move in, she suddenly starts exploring her new surroundings. As the day goes on she meets her new neighbors the Ayase sisters. The rest of the volume has her experiencing broken locks, running out of the house in her PJs and puts her neighbor Ayase Fuuka in embarrassing situations. As the day progresses she learns about air conditioners and the problem of global warming. This is especially funny because the story introduces the problem of global warming (usually a topic meant for older generations) to a five year old. The next day she and her father meet the mother of the Ayase family and get a free television from the family. Also Jumbo (Mr. Koiwai's buddy) meets Ayase Asagi. As the week goes on Yotsuba and her father go to the department store to buy some necessities that they needed around the house. Its funny to see Yotsuba go around the store hiding in a cupboard, asking "what is this?", and falling asleep on the display bed. At the end of the day they visit the local shrine and see the beautiful view of their new city. The following day Yotsuba grabs Ayase Ena and goes cicada hunting with Jumbo. Yotsuba proves that being young does hinder certain activities when she is too short to reach the cicadas on the top of certain trees. Jumbo helps her by picking her up and she catches her first cicada, a big kuma cicada. After catching a few of the flying bugs, they go back to the Ayase household and went to show Ena's mother. As they got into the house Yotsuba released all of the cicadas into the house. Asagi comes in and yells who did this, Jumbo points to Yotsuba and yells "IT WAS HER". Yotsuba ignoring the rest of everything going out, goes and picks up the kuma cicada that she caught and showed Ena's mother. After Ena's mother grinned and quickly said "yes, yes" , Yotsuba raised the kuma cicada in the air and yelled, "YAY".

The last chapter of the first volume is very significent in my opinion. Fuuka learns a little bit about Yotsuba's past and wonders more about it, but Mr. Koiwai says that everything is "OK", "That girl's able to enjoy anything and everything, Yotsuba is invincible."

Stress

So lately I have been going through a lot, with five classes and work outs almost everyday. For the last two weeks I have had two tests already and I am trying very hard to keep  my work out schedule consistent, and addition to working out I am trying to fix my food intake. Just last Thursday all I had for the whole day was a fiber pill, a multivitamin pill, a bottle of water, and a jamba juice smoothie, overall I consumed maybe 500-600 calories for that one day which is a lot less than a normal person does.
People all have different ways of relieving stress, some play games, some go out with friends, and you don't me to tell you that there are infinite possible ways of relieving stress.
For me lately I have been reading some easy to read, light hearted, and simple manga. These manga are usually based on comedy, they have jokes and gags that are simple, but can still make almost anyone laugh. There usually is no story or plot, it is just some characters hanging out and living their lives out.
I have determined that these are my favorite two mangas to read when I feel the need to relax:
Yotsubato & Ichigo Mashimaro
Both of these manga have no main plot, but have cute and lovable characters. The chapters are usually short and have some kind of gag going on.
Yotsuba is a little girl with green hair and has an odd perspective of the world. She and her father just moved into to a new neighborhood, Every chapter Yotsuba learns a new experience through her daily life. This is basically a look into life through the perspective of a little kid. Yotsuba learns about things like department stores, riding bikes, and many more other things.
Ichigo Mashimaro is about four girls in elementary school, and a high school student. Each of the girls have a different personality trait and have a funny way of interacting with each other. There is Nobue Ito whose the oldest of the five girls, Chika Ito whose best trait is being utterly average, Miu Matsuoka who has an infinite amount of different costumes and has somewhat of a screw loose, Matsuri Sakuragi the youngest of the girls and is extremely shy, and Ana Coppola who is half japanese, half english and has a hard time figuring which nationality best represents her. The five girls go through a normal lifestyle hanging out usually in Chika's room and talking about random topics that spark interest for that certain day.
Reading such simple stories could bore certain people, but to me simple jokes with no complex story relaxes me and helps me think "You know life is simple sometimes"