L'arc en Ciel in Singapore 3

The L'arc en Ciel concert was really really fun!!!! Because of a mix up when we were getting our tickets, I ended up without a CAT1 ticket. At first i thought i wouldn't go but in the end, i managed to find E who was keen but not keen enough to get CAT1 tix so we both got CAT3 tix.



It was a little far from the stage but the video screens and video wall ensured that we saw a good deal of pretty good quality close ups of the band.



But being so far back didn't dampen our spirits. Both E and i were screaming our lungs out. We were dancing, head banging, clapping, cheering, jumping... It was a ton of fun.



We used up so much energy that we actually were kinda hungry after that. So we took a train to marina bay sands and went to a pub to have some beer and eat some snacks.

I am crashing now... Need sleep... I think i will have to try and write the Kajiura Yuki, FictionJunction and Kalafina posts another day. Hope to write those and also a fuller post on L'arc en Ciel. For now... I need sleep.... Dozing of while writing this .... Zzzzzzzzzz... Oyasumi :)

L'arc en Ciel in Singapore 2

Woohoo!!!! i am now in the Singapore Indoor Stadium waiting for the concert to start. Getting excited. :)

Quite a few of my friends are here and i met up with several old schoolmates and colleagues too. Kinda fun bumping into them at the kallang leisure centre. :)

the band is tuning their instruments now. All of us are getting really excited. :) rock on!!!! :)

L'arc en Ciel in Singapore 1

Woohoo!!! My first weekend off in weeks!!! And today i will be attending the L'arc en Ciel concert at the Indoor Stadium. :)

While i am usually happy to put in extra days on the weekend, i am a little tired and this would be a good break. After this, i hope to get more paid weekend work again. I need to really put some money away for my august/september trip. :)

I was thinking of updating the blog with more Kajiura Yuki, FictionJunction and Kalafina posts this morning. But the table tennis game really tired me out and i am out now trying to do my homework before i go for the concert tonight.

If i am not completely tired out when i get home i may try and update the blog. But for now... I will enjoy my first Saturday off in a while. :)

Kajiura Yuki Live Vol. 9 - small update

Kajiura Yuki tweeted a small update regarding the Vol.9 Live about 5 hours ago.  She announced that the 3 day live special will feature the following:

Day 1: Japanese Language Only Special (日本語オンリーSpecial) (Friday 31st Aug)
Day 2: Soundtrack Special (Saturday 1st Sept)
Day 3: No Japanese Song Special (日本語封印Special) (Sunday 2nd Sept)

She also goes on to tweet that they will not perform the same song twice in the 3 days.

I'm really excited about it now.  Gosh... I really hope I can get tickets to these 3 days.

This has been a good day for Kajiura Yuki's music fans.  First Kalafina in Malaysia and now more news about the 3 day special.  Am hoping I can make both but if I had to choose, I'm definitely picking vol.9 :)

p.s. yes, I know I re-used the same picture... maybe I'll update it later... kinda tired.

edit:
Itsuko just informed me that fan club application for tickets will be from the 14th - 19th May.  Keeping my fingers crossed that we have no problem getting tix and that they are all good seats. :)

Kalafina in Malaysia (AFA Malaysia)

https://www.facebook.com/animefestivalasia
http://animefestival.my/

Good news for Malaysian fans... Kalafina has just been annouced as one of the artist who will perform at the first ever Anime Festival Asia (Malaysia).

I have mixed feelings about it... while I feel it's really cool for Malaysian fans... I'm not sure if I can make it to Malaysia in June (9th - 10th June).  The show I'm working on will likely to be very, very busy in June and working on weekends are a very real possibility.

I wonder if I can slip away just to attend anisong.  But in KL... hmmmm... :(

I hope they'll come to Singapore in November too for AFA Singapore... if not, there is a very real possibility that I won't be able to see them live this year which would be a real bumper. :(

Ah well... good news for Malaysian fans and regional fans who can make it tho' :)

Got to go back to work... cheers. :)

nothing much

It's 630 in the morning and i am on the train on my way to the studio. In an effort to amuse myself, i decided to download and play with the instagram app for android on my Samsung Galaxy S2. I was never particularly interested in the app because i had many other cam apps that did tons of stuff which i really liked. But my interest in instagram was piqued by Facebook's billion dollar purchase of the app.

Hmmmmm... I am decidedly unimpressed by instagram. The only thing which was perhaps better than the other apps was the ease of sharing pix on twitter and fb etc. And perhaps the online album and the ability to post comments. Other than that i rather use the other apps. They quite simply offer way more options. I suppose if u want ease of use, instagram's limited options make sharing photos quick and simple but it is kind of restrictive for someone like me. Facebook must have seen the potential of something else in this app because i don't know why anyone would pay a billion for it.

My current fav is One Man With A Camera and the above is taken using that app.

And here is another one shot yesterday. I quite like this one.


K.... Am done... I would like to stone for a bit now... Storing energy for work. :)

雨水

A morning downpour has made it more difficult for me to go to work today. Nope, it has nothing to do with the trains usually running slower on rainy days. I really, really, really wish i could sleep in today. The weather is so cool now and my bed felt so comfy and warm. Unfortunately, i had already agreed to go into the studio today... so here i am... on the train to my 13th straight day at work.

It has really been a while since i worked so many days in a row. My max was 6 months but i didn't work full days on weekends then and my regular work day didn't have too many OT hours.. Of course i know people who work even longer stretches and seriously... I don't know how they do it.

I am way more relaxed today then i was yesterday. Relaxed enough to feel like mobile blogging. :) The last two days were actually quite stressful at work. We were rushing a lot of shots and i was really tired and slightly short tempered.

Today i am doing some volunteer work on another show which is cool. I wanted to work on that show too and i think i could learn some things by working on it. The added bonus is that today is an additional paid day. Yay!! :). More money for trips and hobbies and bills... in that order of importance. :D

The above photo was taken on a Samsung Galaxy S2 using the "one man with a camera" app. I kind of like it. :)

K... Time to go... Changing trains. :)

Kalafina - to the beginning cds - arrived today :)

Yay!!!  My Kalafina "to the beginning" cds are here.  I would like to write up something... but am really tired.  Another really long day at work and the possibility of more OT tomorrow night means I really, really need to go to sleep.  So here is my photo of what I got in the mail today... really made my day. :)

I've already taken most of the photos I think I'll need for the Kalafina "to the beginning" Limited blu-ray edition and the Anime edition.  Will need to take a few of the Lisani! Vol.8.2 magazine which features Kajiura Yuki.  If I don't put in ridiculous hours at work tomorrow, I'll try and write it up tomorrow.

But for now... it's oyasumi. :)

P.s. Let me say quickly that I think the b-side song 満天(manten) is EPIC!!!! I really like it. :)

Puella Magi Madoka Magica KEY ANIMATION NOTE Vol.2 - review

Returned home pretty late again today so will have to try and speed through this.  My Kalafina "to the beginning" singles have shipped and I would probably get them sometime this week. Yay!! :)  Before that happens, I would really like to get a few planned posts done.  This is one of them.  So... here we go. :)


The front and back cover still in their shrink wrap.



When you put the scans of the front and the back cover side by side, they almost make one continuous visual. This was also a feature of Vol.1 and I think will be the standard for all volumes.


I think I've managed to show you how shiny the book cover is.  Even Donkey Kong approves. :D



The above are the photos of the bonus items.  It comes with some kind of cardboard printing of some of a drawing of some of the witches.  I had mistakenly thought it was a mouse-pad in my review of Vol.1 because I did not remove it from it's shrink wrapping.  This time, I took a closer look at both cards and they aren't mouse-pads.  They are drawings of the witches printed on textured paper.

The envelope contains 4 sheets of drawings.  One of them is designed for the Vol.2 Animation Note and the others I think maybe replicas of some of  the actual drawings from the artwork for the anime.  They all follow the idea behind the Key Animation Note series and all 4 sheets have the "registration holes" printed on them.  I kind of like this bonus item.  I think they were trying to replicate what an actual envelope containing the artwork for the anime would look like and I think that's kind of cool. :)


(i just noticed this morning that i used the wrong photos for the white book cover and tomoe mami is out of focus... will fix that later tonight... need to go to work now)

A shiny book cover's side sleeve has a drawing of Tomoe Mami's soul gem.  I thought that was a nice touch.  Also, once the shiny book cover comes off, you'll see that this time it's Tomoe Mami who graces the cover of the book itself. I shows up better than Kyubey did on Vol.1.

Vol.2 of the Key Animation Note series covers episodes 1-3 of the anime and focus on Tomoe Mami.  I expect that the next few volumes will follow this kind of design for each of the remaining magical girls.

The binding is like Vol.1's binding. It's a pretty standard type of binding and will almost certainly remain a feature of the rest of this 6 volume release.


The above are sample pages from the artbook itself.  And one of the reasons why I think this is a nicer release than Vol.1, is because there are several full coloured pictures of the witches and the witches world in this release.  I also like how they show the initial sketches next to the final full coloured versions. Also, I personally think that there seems to be more dynamic drawings detailing the different expressions and poses of some of the characters in some of the scenes and I liked more.


Finally, here are the 2 volumes side by side. Vol.2 is thicker than Vol.1 but other than that, the other dimensions remain the same.

Okay... I really need to go to now.   I'll be ordering vol.3 and vol.4 tonight before I head to bed.  Also, I'll be bundling them together, I won't be doing vol.3's review till a month after it's release.  I considered shipping them separately but it just didn't make economical sense and didn't fit that well into my monthly budget.  So... I'll just have to wait.  :(

For those who are interested... I'm getting these artbooks from CD Japan and here is the quick and easy link to the 6 volumes if you should decide to get them too.... click me.

K... that's it for now... good night. :)

Madoka KEY ANIMATION NOTE Vol.2 - preview & other rambling thots

I'm going to have to go to bed in 5 mins.  Have to try and crawl out of bed at 5.30am so that I can try and get to the studio by 7am to begin work.  The shot I'm working on is really not easy and I need to get it ready by Monday for the prep artist.  Yeah... it's getting a little hot under the collar.

Ah well... at least it's yet another day which I can claim pay or toil for.  It'll definitely come in useful because it looks like I may go to Hokkaido before my trip to Tokyo where I'll hopefully be able to attend the 3 day Kajiura Yuki vol. 9 Live.  We'll see... I'm always nervous when it comes to obtaining tickets.  I always think that I may not get them which would suck since now that I've decided I'm going to... I think I would be massively disappointed if it screws up.

I also forgot about the Kalafina ustream from BayFM 78 till Kajiura Yuki mentioned it on twitter this afternoon.  In the end, it probably doesn't matter since I wasn't going to be able to watch it anyway as I was at work and trying to get that shot out.  Kajiura Yuki also has a twitter event which took place tonight to watch the Kalafina After Eden blu-ray / dvd together.  I like it that she holds these events relatively often.  Unfortunately, I have never attended one and had decided not to attempt to attend this one too.  Firstly, my Japanese is truly not great and it takes time for me to work out what is being said, also I returned home late from work & dinner after that and I didn't even watch the Everton match.  I am dead tired and wanting to sleep soon.

But first, I would like to say that I started preparing photos for my upcoming post on the Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Key Animation Note vol.2.  Yes, I know that photo is soft... that's why it's a preview. :p  Well, I'll probably re-do that photo.  I just want to say quickly that I vol.2 is nice, very nice and, in my opinion, nicer than vol.1.  It's making me really excited about vol.3 which I haven't ordered yet because I was previously undecided as to how I'm going to bundle them etc.  I will probably order it tomorrow as I've decided to bundle it with vol.4 to save on shipping.

Finally, I'm feeling kind of bummed too since Everton lost the FA cup semi-final to Liverpool. :( :(  Well... still it was a good job getting there considering that Everton's team is a lot less expensive than Liverpool's and yet were still able to get to the semis and put up a good fight too.  Here's hoping that we'll remain above Liverpool at the end of the Season. At least that will be something.

Alrighty... my not very focus rambling post is done... off to bed... tomorrow I go to battle. =)

p.s.  oh btw, I checked my cdjapan account and it's showing that my Kalafina to the beginning singles order is "in stock"!!!!  Cool!!!!! Can't wait for it to come. :)

to the beginning [w/ Blu-ray, Limited Edition]

Japan trip 4 - Day 3 - Kajiura Yuki Live Vol.8 - FJ Club exclusives

Long long day at work today and had dinner at 1220am... not the healthiest thing to do :( ... I'm going to have to try and keep this as short as possible.

I was very fortunate and managed to get the sing a song single and scorebook that was only for sale to FictionJunction Club members.  Itsuko is a member of the fanclub and each member is allowed to buy 2 copies of the single and the scorebook, so I lucked out and managed to get myself one of each too. :)

Here are the photos of the "sing a song" FJC club exclusive single.  Pretty standard stuff actually, except the inclusion of a score for the "sing a song" song in the CD booklet.



Here are photos of the "sing a song" scorebook.



The scorebook is kind of cool.  It even indicates which part is sung by which one of the FictionJunction singers.

Sadly, my scorebook got a little wet from the rain that day so it does look a little worse for wear.

 

I think that there is a printing error in this score book.  Page 3 of the scorebook indicates that Kaida sang this solo line but I'm positive that it's actually Keiko that sings the line "かな　－－　しみ　－　がくれたう　－　た”.  Firstly, that voice sounds nothing like Yuriko Kaida's voice.  Also, the scorebook indicates that Kaida gets a second solo line just after Yuuka's.  And if the scorebook is to be believe, then Keiko gets no solo lines which would be odd since it would mean that she would be the only one of the vocalists not to get a solo line.

As for the songs themselves, I haven't really had time to really digest them.  The sing a song song is written in the style of what I guess is best describes as a "school song".  Maybe something that's sung at a graduation or something.  It's all right I guess but I think I would have preferred something more upbeat, something more like Everlasting Song.  That said, this song is probably easy enough for most people to sing without too much difficulty which maybe why it was written this way since this song is the FictionJunction Club song.

The b-side song silent moon's main singer is Nanri Yuuka and is sung a cappella with the other FJ vocalists in support. It's actually kind of nice, very listen-able and my favourite part of the song is when they all harmonize their "la la la la la..."  The melody is not the most complex and it's not one of those experimental type compositions.  However, I believe that sometimes less is best, especially when it's a cappella.  silent moon is lovely in it's simplicity and I like it for that reason.  I can see it being a nice breathe of fresh air each time it comes up in my playlist on my portable player.  95% of the songs in my player are written by Kajiura Yuki and I play them on random and loop and I certainly cannot think of any other song in my player that sounds like this.  So while this may not be a stand-out track in a CD full of a cappella music, this song can definitely hold its own because of how different it is from the other material in Kajiura Yuki's career.

Okie dokie... time for me to hit the haystack.  The next two days will be long days but thankfully it's not all work related.  I'm suppose to go watch a performance tomorrow night and have dinner with friends I haven't seen in a long time on Friday.  I'm off to store energy for two days of work and two nights of fun. :)  Good night. :)

Japan trip 4 - Day 3 - Kajiura Yuki Live Vol.8 - concert goods

After writing that really long post on my impressions of my very first Kajiura Yuki Live, I had to take a break because it was a little exhausting even for me and I can be really long-winded.  Admittedly I was slightly distracted by the football match on tv which meant that if I had concentrated a little more, I probably would have finished it a little bit earlier.  I guess I didn't expect it to take so long.

Anywayz, it's kind of late again.  This time I was stoning on the couch, watching an episode of Lucky Seven and playing a video game on my Sony Vita all at the same time.  Yes... it did mean that I didn't get the rest I should have, I probably have to re-watch that episode and I did really badly in that video game. :D

Okie dokie... I'm going to see if I can make this quick.  I'll probably get to writing that short translation of that MC bit in the concert in another post.  I'll reserve this one for the concert goods, excluding the wooden spoon which I talked about in another post already.

Here goes, hopefully picture heavy and text light so that I can get to bed earlier than usual...

Concert T-Shirt (17th March Tokyo shirt)

There was a tour t-shirt on sale and a day t-shirt on sale.  In the end, I only got the t-shirt for the Live on the 17th Mar in Tokyo because I had also decided to get the bag and the wooden spoons.  Sadly, getting another t-shirt would be above my budget, so I resisted and didn't buy it.  Here are the photos of the t-shirt that I did buy.

 

Concert Pamphlet

Here are the photos of the concert pamphlet which I really rather like. Click me to buy from CDJapan




I don't think you can tell from the photos but this approximately 21cm x 15cm hard-cover book's cover has a layer of felt-like fabric around the hard cardboard paper.  The images and the text are also embossed.  It's really rather nice and quite different from your usual concert pamphlet.

I'm not entirely certain what kind of look and feel they were trying to achieve but it seems to me that they seemed to want to make it feel like an old journal. The fonts and the design of the images isn't modern at all and definitely more European than Japanese.  They also decided to make this smaller than the usual approximately A4 size pamphlets one often gets at concerts which really adds to the feel of it being more of a journal. 

 

The paper inside the book is also not bleached white but has a hint of yellow / brown to it.  Once again, I think it was trying to make this book feel older then it actually is.  Kajiura Yuki, the regular FJ utahimes and the 3 guest stars get an interview each.  The above are just samples from Kajiura Yuki's and Keiko's interviews.

There is also a section in the pamphlet where Kajiura Yuki chats with the Front Band Members and a 2 page spread that introduces them as well.

They also included a section called staff questionnaire which is kind of interesting.  Several members of the staff, like the technicians, operators, stylist etc were asked eight questions.  It includes questions about the preparations for the Live, what they hoped to see from the Kajiura family in the future, when did they first meet Kajiura Yuki and what were their impressions of her, the FJ utahimes, the guest stars and the Front Band members.

 

This is a pretty nice release and I like it lots more than some of the concert pamphlets I have picked up over the years.  These days, Kajiura Yuki's and Kalafina's pamphlets have become more like collectibles rather than just a regular A4 thing with some text and some photos stapled together.  The pamphlets have gone up in price but so has the quality and I personally like that.



You get a free bookmark if you get the concert pamphlet.  You'll have to pick between one of two versions.  I picked the one with Kajiura Yuki's signature because I would like to pretend I got an autograph :D but mostly because it just went better with the pamphlet.  :)  I forgot to shoot a photo of it and had to use the ones that I shot in the hotel room in Tokyo which isn't really ideal.  The lighting in that room had an yellowish tinge and it kind of changed the colour of everything.  Yuck.

I also forgot to shoot detailed photos of the tote bag that I got at the concert.  You've seen it in a previous post but I didn't shoot any of it on its own.  It's a pretty standard tote back.  The handles are the short variety.  Just enough so that you can swing it onto your shoulder but not over your body.  I like it.  Just what I needed at that point in time and I don't have a tote bag of that size which works for me.

Okay... that's it... I ran out of time.  I think tomorrow I'll post up the detailed photos of the club exclusives and maybe that MC bit.  And if I have time... maybe the Mahou Shoujo Key Animation Note Vol.2.

For now... I need to try and get at least 5 hours of sleep in.  So good night for now. :)