anime review: shirobako episode 1
status: DROPPED
so usually when people rave and recommend anime on their blogs i usually brush it off and ignore that persons recommendations with the assumption that their taste in anime iscomplete shit. for some reason i didn’t do that yesterday and actually checked this out. genshiken was shit and so is this. in the middle of it i was thikning hmmm i’d rather watch anime giga or tlak/variety shows or interviews with seiyuu /anime director people, geinin, tv talent etc etc. I think that would be more interesting, informational, and most of all efficient.
i’ve mentioned before on my blog i’m sure that there are tell-tale signs that an anime is shit and this anime had those but for some reason i still watched the episode till the end though very distracted with my smartphone towards the end. i fast-forwarded here and there like the annoying car driving scenes. for me personally, the most interesting part of episode 1 is the part where the girl is listening to the voice actresses chit-chatting on the radio because it reminds me of japnaese talk/vairety shows which i love plus they didn’t talk at a snail’s pace. i geniunely found that to be the most interesting part of the episode.
anyways here’s some tell-tale signs that the anime is not wroth watching:
the scene where the girl meets that other woman who is well endowed and at one point they use a strange camera angle to emphasize how big are tits are. it’s just so unnecssary and it doesn’t fit the anime and it’s just been OVER-DONE so many f’in times in anime. they did other stuff to emphasize her tits but it’s jut like… why don’t you use that energy and effort and time on improving the damn DIALOGUE.
all the characters are shit… all the characters look exactly the same minus hair color or style. the first 5 minutes was like…. they all look the same. i cannot remember their names. i also roll my eyes at their names lol. it remiinded me of k-on… which i’ve never seen but i would assume it would be a very boring anime.
the blonde girl who works in the anime company… i was shaking my head with a resounding no. empty moe is just pointless. i think it’s cheap throwing in some random archetype design blahblahb… it made me barf.
every time they introduced anime stafff…. and then then character opened his/her moiuth . i kept saying to myself THIS IS SO BORING. his voice is SO BORING and is what i predicted. i was thinking yep this guy has the boring voice, this guy has the cool guy voice, uh huh just don’t even bother making them tlak… it’s so mundane and makes me wonder what’s the point of making this anime.
no one seems to have a personality. so BLAND
………………….
the show is very bland. all the dialogue is so boring in every way. the delivery, content, emotion are all lacking. my biggest problem with the dialogue is that it is frivolous.
the show feels very contrived, fake, and draggy. there was a part where one of the anime worker preson says omg x is isn’t done=. do you know what this means?that means x can’t y or blahblahblah. and that means y can’t x blahblaha. i think he kept repeating that multiple times after saying that. it’s such an unnatural way to talk. it feels like some kind of shitty anime worker trainer video with bad acting where they act out situations where shit goes wrong and explain the implications of that. half the dialogue is like this. it’s so stilted and unnatural. i felt really uncomfortable watching it from the fakeness. also watching the characters “freak out” about the “problems” was just irritating and trivial and “how gives a shit” ” get the fuck over it”. usually if I’m into the anime i’ll be interested in how they solve it and feel excitement or thrill or whatever but here i’m lke let me fastfoward 5 minutes to see how they resolve it. it’s so draggy and TEDIOUS.
i was reading ove rmy previous posts on slayers next, iron leaguer, battle athlets victory. and i must say my sentiments are so so different towards this anime compared to those. i cannot watch shit.
another anime i will check out due to that blog is shigatsu no uso because he just had to say it was like welcome to the nhk! I recommend this anime highly to anyone who likes anime or hates it. but then he said it turns to shit so he recommends not watching it. i just want to check it out and see if iget the welcome to the nhk vibe or welcome to nhk leves of greatness or addictiveness. i have no problem skipping episodes, fast-forwarding, dropping,,,, so i don’t feel pressured to waste x hours of my life😀 k.
no pictures of anime here bigecause quite frakly they all look the same. plus i ain’t wasting time screenshotting shit.
KOREAN DRAMA REVIEWS!
I decided to write this post because I saw 2 dramas recently. by saw i mean around 1 ep or less. one was on vicki and the other was on dramafever and i’m not including photo of the drama because as most people are aware all koreans look the same when it comes to kdramas. just go to dramafever and try to differentiate actors and actresses. even if you cn different
iate them they all look so similar… it’s due to plastic surgery or korea’s obessesion with certain features. i just annoyed seeing some of these actresses with the big eyebrows that are drawn in or their delivery which are all the fuckin same. for the guys i hate t
he SAME DAMN HAIRSTYLES. thhe dramas where they cast the “plain looking girl character” with the short hair all look like the same actress to me…. the actress/actor look the same even with roles where the maincharacter doesn’t necessarily have to be drop dead gorgeous . i hate the lack of diversity. nayways if you want to see what the 2 dramas that i talk about looks like with the actresses and anything just open drama fever.com all of them look the same anyway.
so the 2 dramas are nodame cantabile && LIAR GAME. nodame cantabile is named tomorrow’s cantabile in the korean verison. it i korean-drama-washed to the max. first of all let’s talk about one of the strengths of the jdramas. they are shorter in number of epiodes, duration. it’s especially like that with LIAR GAME because that drama is 35 minutes long!!!! nodame is probably 45 minutes. korean dramas clock in around 50-55 minutes because they don’t air commecials in korea. if thing didn’t change from the 90s they air like 3 minute of commercial let’s say at 8 or before 8 and then they air the full korean drama without any commercial interruptions. also they tend to be at least 20 eps as far as i know. i don’t know how many eps korean nodame or korean liar game is beause that 1 ep is enough to just to steer me away
ALSO kdramas seem to be obsessed with remaking japanese dramas like hollywood remaking movies … sounds like they’re running out of ideas. they even remake GOD AWFUL jdramas…. they were awful in japanese so the korean drama is probably just more annoying. by the way i was slightily interested in that remake of JIN because i love jin but the korean vesion was just shit… i saw random clips and that was eonugh. and i think there was a guy in that show with a MODERN hair style. that REALLY PISSES ME OFF. they give the pretty guy the pretty girl hairstyle in a peirod drama and it’s one of those things i cannot stand. the version i saw was the legitimate korean version. there was this scandal because onechannel/company made the jin drama with permission, the other without and of course they deny copying the drama despite all the remarkable similarities and the 2 dramas were airing in the same season too… it’s so RIDICULOUS. are you china or something? i hope the jin people sued their asses off and got their money.
LIAR GAME – before i watched i did a little research and found out how they added a reality tv component which reminds me of hunger games which activates my gag reflex lol. i love reality tv depending on the show because there’s bad ones and good ones. with regards to liar game i’m wondering why anyone woudl dothat. talk about blandifying liar game. ther’s no stakes. the show is fun or exhilarating to watch because you see people fall into the depths of despair. in the korean ersion there’s no stakes… it’s just oh i didn’t win the money. there’s no reaso to get upet or worked up. it’s public and everything is laid out on the table. i watched the first 20 minutes and it was okay and i was relaxing while watching it for fun. however after a while i just had to fastforward. ihated the part where they made the girl talk to the camera and tell her sob story. it reminded me of….. crappy korean dramas and just undoes everything that is liar game. the korean writers are so lazy. they pretty much copied scenes from the jdrama except they stretch them out more due to the duration of the show. i saw ihe jdrama a long time ago that they’re literally just translating chunks of dialogue and doesn’t do much innovation. all the interesting plot advancement or twists are straight from the japanese version. it makes me say what’s the point??????? of making a korean version. you’re just translating the script into korean and adding superfluous crap, and make up a korean opening song that is the inferior watered-down version of the japanese opening song because… they hate listenin to japanese?????/ wut?? the korean version is so damn tedious. also the background music in japanese liar game KICKS ASSS
The korean drama has no distinct atosphere going on with the cinmeotgraphy, camera work etc. it’s a typical korean drama. the japanese one was very distinct in its atmosphere and it was unique to the drama and i loved it to bits. in the korean drama, kanzaki nao and akiyama (forgot his first name) are turned into korean drama character blobs. they turned them into the typical characters you see in kdramas (akiyama turned into a typical “cool guy” in a korean drama which is WRONG. akiyama isn’t a typical “cool guy” in a jdrama…. because for one thing MATSUDA SHOUTA CAN ACT while many “good looking actors” in japan cannot act not that all good looking japanese actors can’t act but japanese pople tend to put people in the spotlight due to their good looks despite how little talent they have ). of course they interact with each other like typical korean characters in korean dramas in those typical scenes . of course they deliver lines in a certain way that is seen very frequently in korean dramas. and OF COURSE they say these lines that always IRK me when i hear them used in kdramas. i wish they would ban some of these pharses like they were curse words or something. i hate those phrases, they use them all the time, and the delivery is always the same and i can’t stand hearin git. but phrases i mean those typical phrases the main girl and main guy say to each oter when they insult each other or argue or are irritated with each other. most importantly those phrases are NOT LIAR GAME. they do not belong in liar game. they gutted liar game and took out all the flavor and soul and turned into a bland korean drama.
they took all the excitement out of liar game and made me question why bother? what is the point of this drama? the problem with remakes are that they always make me question what is the POINT of making this? why don’t i just rewatch the original? how is it possible that they put in so little effort and little copy-pate certain scenes or lines yet it’s so much worse? ‘
i watched parts of episode 2 and the little parts of eps with “x” and wow how can you f up the eps with the “x arc”. they sure know how to turn the most exciting plot into bland shit.
NODAME CANTABILE
i made it through the first 10 minute sor so? this drama was even MORE copy paste and laziness compared to liar game and and… it screamed POINTLESS. i haven’t seen this drama in a long time but i can tell the converstations and scenes were direct copyt paste from the j-drama so how do you expect people to not compare.
anyways i hate the lack of diversity in korean actors. why is these no diversity? why does chiaki look so… sterile? lol . watching the show feels so unnatural sometimes because i don’t know anyone in real life who looks like the korean actor for chiaki. he looks too sterile… no facial hair no pores … just perfect skin… i know dramas feature good looking actors and actresses and i like that. i like good-looking people in dramas too but in this instance something is offf. anyways he gives me the creeps and his acting is lacking. in general, korean dramas are off-setting and feel almost scary to watch because no one in the drama look like real poeple that you see in real life even with the side characters. i undersatnd that people want to see good looking people and dramas are fake and whatnot but the disparity between real people and peple in dramas is off-putting especially in korean dramas.
i promised no picture of the dramas themselves but you can only undersatnd what i’m saying by seeing his face
the girl casted as nodame like th eguy creeps me out because her skin is too perfect etc and yes all korean dramas are like that i know ….
ANYWAYS while i was watching it i thought korean chiaki is creepy with his face and chiaki’ rival…. gave off vibes of gayness! i interepeted the scene where he was saying mean shit to chiaki about germany or something as flirting. he was dressed so gay and his hairstyle was gay and his way of talking wasn’t entirely straight. in short he was oozing gay and so i thought wow this korean drama is breaking walls down with gay cahracters lol. j/k ( WAS NO ONE ELSE THINKING WHAT I WAS THINKING… if you want to chck it out thi scene is from ep 1 when chiaki is outside somewjere) but seriously iwas expecting a gay sex scene between them later on in the episode becausae of that awful show “ohw to get away with murder” (sreiously nearly eveyr episode had a gay sex scene and so many characters are sleeping around and it’s so ridiculous… it’s a show with no good characters. annelise is so eh though the actress is very talented )
the korean actors are just copying the japanese actors… i hated the korean guy’s acting… everything came off as over-acting in a bad (not saying tamaki hiroshi i ssuper talented and perfect… i will say that his rendition had charm) , annoying way. the girl just pissed me off with her nodame impersonation. i call it impersonation and not acting. like liargame . they just translate all the dialogue to korean and stretch it out and makes me say wtf is the point of this show? why don’t i just watch the japanese version? acting i cringey. it makes me cringe.
i watched the 2 dramas not to talk shit about them but out of sheer curiosity and with the faint glimmer of hope that they innovated and made something interesting to watch that a fan of the original version could enjoy… they don’t innovate. nobody seems to understand the concept of REMAKING a drama. it doesn’t mean copy paste, stretch out shit, add typical-bland-korean-drama BS.. you could say making a movie from a book is re-making the book since the director is not going to COPY PASTE from the book since a movie is a not a book. the movie will bore people to death if all you do is copy paste the book with a shitload narration and pan-scans etc . speaking of which i HIGHLY recommend the movie CONFESIONS and the dramas LIAR GAME AND NODAME CANTABILE (this one isn’t that amazing to be honest. i’m not obsessed with it). happppppppppppy new year.
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aLSO i’ll write my litle reivew on hunger games movie because i was dragged to it because i can’t seem to leran how to say no.
it’s shit. it is lame (this YOU CANNOT DENY) with awful analogies that do not need to be mentioned and awful non-tension building tedious scene that somebody had the audacity to write, audacity to act out and audacity to direct and audacity to not edit out of the movie (not onlt that that scene had characters no one gave a shit about so i rather they perished and died in that scene that way that scenes accomplishes something and wastes 9 inutes and 59 seconds of my time as opposed to a full 10 minutse). unles you enjoyed twilight, stay away. plot is bad, characters are bad, most importantly it’s nearly 3 hours and the whole movie can be summed up in less than 10 seconds…. “insult to my intelligence”
Love Shuffle Review
Like I did for gonzo i’m just gonna write an entry rather than add tothe reviews or create a new post with a bunch of reviews ( i have to watch a shitload of drama before i can do that lol)
my thoughts after ep 1:
love shuffle. episode 1 thoughts: it seems average. none of the characters seem that interesting. but people say this show is really good and somebody told me it was better than jin. jin has its flaws but it was so enjoyable and well-done in SO MANY ASPECTS. obviously love shuffle won’t beat jin in the costume or background music department… though i do like the english songs as bgm
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so i heard good stuff about this as in better tha JIN good as in top drama from 2009 but i don’t think so at all lol. from 2009 I believe I saw
arifureta kiseki, atashinchi no danshi, uta no onii-san, boss, mr. brain, buzzer beat – these are all like less than 1 ep or just clips. i can tell they’re just average/below average as in not worth watching DESPITE the lead actor and how i much like him or her.
samurai high schol
liar game 2
JIN
gyne gine?
mei chan no shitsuji
besides love shuffle
… so 2009 was awful lol from what i’ve seen so i can see why people would want to rave about love shuffle because there’s so much shit but comeo on!! there’s a couple on my to watch list from 2009 so those might be the good ones. I guess love shuffle is better than some of the shit i saw but it’s still not special. for me from what i’ve seen it’s like #1 jin #2 gine #3 liar game 2 (yeah it’s not good compared to season 1 especially since season 1 is 35min and season 2 is 44 min but i feel like i had more fun watching this than love shuffle though i definitely didn’t enjoy it as much as season 1 ) #4 love shuffle
So the cast is goooooooood. I like everyone and i especially am a fan of matsuda shouta and tanihara shousuke and yoshitaka yuriko. I feel like it’s one of those dramas with a really good cast but weak story/characters. example of why the characters are weak… there’s at least 2 characters that you don’t care about lol which is exemplified in the last episode. the unrealisticness of the show just killed it ie last episode (lame-o)… yeah that’s the premise… is there anyway a show with this premise be actually good???????
story is just weak……… and i could really feel it in the last episode with how they wrapped stuff around. it’s just very luke-warm. I’m not feeling it. i’m just not into it. some of the tie-ups were just turn-offs (turn-off is a good way to translate the negative thoughts on the drama from japanese peple with the samui, itai and all that ) ie matsuda shouta’s, tamaki ‘s was weak, the mei was weak, so was daigo’s. i would say probably tanihara and the jukujo? lol is she too young to be jukujo had the best story lines/acting (the acting can only be so good if the storyline is lame…) compared to the other storylines… there’s good parts and bad parts so i don’t want to make it sound like the show’s complete crap (there’s good lines and some cheesy/iffy lines/scenes)…. any drama does but… i just have these complaints about it and i’m so surprised people are reocmmending this drama. I’d recommend jin and gyne before this and they have j-subs too and they’re timed
to be honest before i heard the good stuff about this drama i was turned off by the concept love shuffle. I didn’t read any synopsis but it’s pretty obvious what that means and i imagined that a show that premise is gonna be very boring unless it’s extremely well-executed with twists and shit as in american-drama level. to some extent love shuffle did fulfill my expectations of being boring. it did take me 5 months to finis hwatching it. what happened was i was watching iron leaguer and love shuffle and i was doing the “watch iron leaguer, watch love shuffle” thing but then iron leaguer GOT SO GOOD and love shuffle was just not drawing me in so i ended up just watching iron leaguer then i just forgot about love shuffle and then i finally finished watching it this week in parts as in watched 15 minutes of ep 9, watched the rest of ep 9 etc. not really because the show is awfual or unwatchable or anything i just don’t have much time lol and i just don’t have a burning desire to finish watching the episode. .
it has comedy in it and sad parts in it and romance parts in it. i think the worst part was probably the romance???????which is really bad since the show is called love shuffle. it wasn’t the romance was awful … i just wouldn’t call it good. it didn’t draw me in. it connects back to the cahracters that they’re weak and there’s 2 throw-away characters. i never cared about mei EVERRRRRRRRRRr. I could never get myself to care. i just find that character that boring and there’s not enough depth. not sure if it’s the actress or the character since i’ve only seen the actress in this drama. i’ve heard that karina dos the same acting in every drama/movie lol. that’s how she’s criticized for her acting the comedy was weak to me… the jo and the panda was just whatev but they kept repeating it… so i was like wtf? sad parts are like … they could be better. like i said with the romance it all connects back to the story and the characters… if they delved deeper or had more something or a twist or anything. there’s just nothing special about this drama. it’s just another unfortunate drama where the cast is amazing but the meat is so lacking. I’m so surprised people put this on top of JIN> jin is ON A COMPLETELY different level for me. If I were to rank love shuffle in my rankings with the must-see/masterpiece good/average etc I would put it at average? because my enojyment was eh.
since a lot of people seemed to have enjoyed it and even like it better than jin i guess it wouldn’t hut for you to try watching it but in case you’re like me… i advise that you gauge the quality of the show with 1 ep or 2 eps because it will grow on you a slightly more after ep 1/2…. so you can tell if you’re one of those people whose hearts resonate with this show or not with just a few eps. I personally would’ve just watched stopped watching it after ep 1 because it didn’t impress me at all but since people were saying good stuff i thought maybe it’s one of those dramas that get really good or build or get amazing all of a sudden or has some twists later down the line but it doesn’t do ANY OF THAT. let me just say that. you might think oh they did have a twist with that character or whatever and to that “I say no that’s not a twist… a twist has to be something a little more severe/interesting.”
i totally agree with the negative reviews on ch-review, accessup, amazon…. it’s so unfortunate because the cast is good but then there’s throw-away characters and the script is just like ugh… japanese people used the word 寒い さぶい 鳥肌
http://www.ch-review.net/contents/%E3%83%A9%E3%83%96%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%83%E3%83%95%E3%83%AB
basically i do not recommend this show and i don’t know why people recommend this or regard it so highly or love it more than JIN… by all means if you want to try one ep is plenty to decide.
plus side is there’s japanese subs that are untimed + dramanote + other japanese blogs tat transcribed stuff but there’s timed subs for the korean ones that you can translate to japanese. like isaid before if you don’t like the drama, there’s no point!
Um Music Review. Let’s say disappointment!!!!!!!! But i’ll also include the tracks ireally liked.
I really was looking forward to it since like I said I haven’t listened/downloaded to” new” music in a while.
Makino yui’s 3rd album
Her first 2 albums are at least 4/5 stars… you can tell she is going beyond just being a seiyuu. You know there are those cookie-cut-out songs that seiyuu sing that nobody listens to incessently to except for otaku. She is a music student (or maybe WAS at this point.. graduted) and so you could tell that and whatnot on her albums. because of that ONE SONG I give the 3rd album like 1.5/5 stars. it’s really horrid…. I’m doing this because I loved her first 2 albms s omuch and this is a huge disappointment. I know she can do better than this.
this 3rd album is absolutely boring. it stops at seiyuu or something. it’s not enough (i’m sure the anime of the anime songs tha tare included are probably not that goood… judging from the songs cause the songs from NHK were pretty kickass right?). the only song that intrigues is the jazzy song merry go round. then again I listened to it a bunch of times and it’s wearing down…I dled the single to see the difference and i like the album version better. the single version is more cookie-cutter/boring.
edit: Now i’m feeling crepuscular rays too😉
omgs no wonder I like it. so makino wrote and composed the song and henkyoku which i think means producer is by none other than saitou neko.
and if you want to know what crepuscular means… go to google image!
I also like saki e nows!
Tokyo Jihen – OkAY IT WAS TOO SOON. It is the worst tokyo jihen album… I personally don’t feel it. Yes it does have sore ha natteiru and onna no ko wa dare demo which are great but like they already released a single for those so i’m sure fans feel ripped off if they bought the single and the album.
I am a… i don’t know what kind of otkyo jihen fan i am but i don’t like the noisy side/screechy side (know what i mean right..
I Like dopmainto. && denki no nai toshi a lot….
Also I figured out that tenkoku e youkoso is in japanese. the other is tenkoku e youkoso is english. I like this song too and I have no idea what genre it is. somebody tell me.
the rest are in english and i like it when shiina sings in japanese… I mean shiina’ english isn’t bad BAD (when she sang if you kiss-ED me now for onna no ko wa daredemo… tat killed it for me. like it would’ve been near perfection if she just pronounced that as kissed me now… though i couldn’t understand her other english that clearly either… LIke I had to read the japanese subs on the sides in MV to be like oh she’s saying ___) but i just prefer her singing in japnaese cause you know the lyrics are really interestin g but you know her english lyrics are pretty damn good too…. it’s so much better than any mainstream american top 40 song. and she doesn’t even speak english? (right?). The crappy mainstream song that I’m thinking of as i write this is obviously the black eyed peas losers. they’re so lazzy and shitty and talentles and fuckin ruinin music. they make noise let’s say let’s do it a million times and it’s gonna be good night a million times. f’in retarded much? . and you know how japanese song lyrics can be really boring.
SCHOOL FOOD PUNISHMENT. alrighty this is BORING> I like RPG and that’s it? and even so that’s a single so i already heard it. I loved them during the indie and I personally felt they hit their peak with that album that had the song KILLER but as of now they are boring as hell and the album before the one released this year had bad lyrics (it was really boring lyrics)… I was listening and i was like wow these lyrics are boring are they 100% jpop now?
I really doubt I like ay song besides RPG but perhaps with more listneing i’ll find other songs I like??
EDIT:
I LOVE LOVE LOVE 1:48 part. of free quiet
oh wiat up, I like free quiet and the not equal sign song ≠ loll. I love the 1:48 part of free quiet It’s like they put some effect on it and I love how it betrays how I think that part’ll play out.
how does one type out not equal sign with japanese ime keyboard thing. . I would imagine it might be possible.
息吹【イブキ】 = from that akb48 song lool.
Lamp’s NEWEST ALBUM I love love love love 君が泣くなら。I love the part where the girl sings kiete shimau (that rhytm or whatever or how that rhytm is off? I love THAT). as far as the other songs are concerned i wouldn’t know yet I only heard them once and I hear kimi ga nakuara at least 100 times now. I love it. But I’ll figure out if i like the rest later. EDIT: I did and I do like it. Not sure if i like them as much as i liked the previous albums though.
EDIT: I was in some mood today while iwas listening to the album but for some reason all the songs sounded amazing…. so yes I love LAMP as always!
I LOVE the instrumental/sounds they arranged in the last minute of the song that has the word madobe in it. it’s A LONG song title. I love it when subtlte crap grabs me
KURIYAMA CHIAKI – CIRCUS I loved the shiina ringo produced songs from the singles. I wasn’t sure if tehre was going to be any songs worth listening to on the album but I loved the first track. The lyrics are interesting and it’s just reallllly goood. It makes me interested in the band that wrote the song for chiaki but I remembe trying that band out before and it was just noisy?
rin to shite shigure– newest album by them. so before I didn’t like them that much before because they were just screamy and all that but then I loved LOVED one song which is f kanshoku. Like it is screamy but it’s nice… I feel it. It was one of those eye-opening moments that wow screamy stuff can be good. I like several songs but one that particularly stands out for me at this point in time is replica this song is PURE catharsis. I don’t know how to explain it but I relaly like it and I hope the band releases new albums in the future.
ALI PROJECT – newest album QUEENDOM is really really boring and tired and all that. I don’t have a single song that I feel. It just feels tired. That’s all. I’m sure I haven’t heard all the tracks yet but I just have a feeling there is none that will resonate with me. but we’ll see. Wait just a minute…. checked out the songs this person recommended and i no longer think what i wrote
ジルデコ4~ugly Beauty jill decoy association – hmm I LOVE squall. I don’t think I like this album as much as the other ones. I have to listen more and figure out if there’s any other songs I really like. and I don’t like it when they sing in english cause i can’t undertand her lol. I also like doresu wo kiru mae ni.
KARASU’s new album hmmm – kanshou keisei kibun wa ikagadesuka? so far one song sorta stands out to me. couple songs ar eboring. I guess i’ll have to listen to it and find out. Right now there’s one song but I don’t know the title.
EDIT So I got around listening to all the tracks and I must say I like all the songs.I liked kumorinaki watashi the most at first, then i realized the amazingsness that is koko ni aru and haru. and then i gensochou grew on me. lastly, ressha… I skipped this song many many times because I didn’t like the beginning of the song. I listened to it all the finally after I found out this song was used a theme song for some japanese rdama. (it’s not primetime drama though) and it’s actually quite nice but it’s the probably the song I like the least but by all means I LOVE 5 out of 6 songs so this album is like a 5 stars out of 5 or 4.9 out of 5 or something. this is why i feel distraught when i see 5 stars reviews over shit that should not evevn be called music. .;
totally recommend this band to everyone just because I LOVE ’em and he’s good at singing/screaming and his voice is unique… you know those japanese bands that are typical have those vocalists that voice you don’t really like. Their music composition? whatever you call it is nice and it’s a lot of catharsis with the screaming. I just love how they set up each song with the hook and that other shit. Lyrics are good too. Yeah if you hate those japanese bands that are mad typical and boring espcially with the lyrics ie the major bands ie ikimono gakari!😦 they sold outttttttttt. but i’m sure they made enough to cover up the suffering they had during the indie days cause i don’t know how much $ people make during the indie days but i’m sure it’s not much. It’s SUCH A SHAME. I finally got to listen to one of their indie albums because people uploaded it after they got popular so in that way i’m glad that they got popular but i’m sad because they’ll nver make anything near that level ever again. for example, karakuri is just amazzing… the emotion and the lyrics are just soo goood. now a days their songs have super boring/recycled feel to them and i don’t feel that much emotion in her voice, the melody is either really predictable throughout the whole song or it’s just so boring I can’t even keep listening. ANYWAYS I noticed that on one of the albums they released after they sold out/jumped the shark etc there actually were good songs like kuchizuke... but I found out that’s because they wrote/released that song on their indie album (maybe their first one?)…. SO I’m just gonna cmpare the two when i get the chance. Im sure the second version, the newer one, is better with the sound quality and the editing or the producing or whatever. but what will be different will be the way she sings like emotion. They also have another amazing song that they redid and somebody wrote somewhere the original is so much version but Idisagree with the person. the original version was not as well as mixed or recorded…. like the instruments are too loud to the point that it’s hard to hear her voice so I like the newer version better but maybe the emotion is better on the first one just because that was before they made it and they were really struggling/working hard.
BIRD- I got 2 of their albums which was like interesting. I only listened to one album but it’s so good and I LOVE the girl’s voice. I espcaally love track 3 which is called sora no hitomi or the other way around. Also love track 2. I hate track 4 because it’s a rap in like english or something.
OFF-TOPIC: immortal song! Sad that hyorin won’t be on anymore but she did a gooood job for her last perfomance. From the way they did it ithink it’s just hyorin and not the show ending (the season). i ONLY WACHED comments for the performances that were good as always. you knowthat’s how AKATT works… you do what you LIKE. from watching the show up to now… I learned a bunch of words (made cards for them) and it was good reviewing the verb conjugation that is in luke park. It doesn’t take too much effort. I’m just aware of verb conjugations and i just recognize when i see it and then i get more and more familiarized like verbs that have ㄹ have differnt conjugation as opposed to other stuff but when I See it I understand what they’re saying and i see what conjugation they did so… it’s just passive yet not yet passive since I’m being conscious of the fact that they just used a word with r and they conjugated like _. it seems more efficient and less effort-ending in the long run as opposed practicing conjugations by myself for no reason except to learn conjugating myself…… sorta like learningt o write hirgana and katakna. you really don’t need to drill this crap. what’s the point? just read. and if you still cna’t write it from just memory after reading a lot then read MORE. by all means stroke order but don’t waste time rdilling to be able to write hiragana/katkaana unless you live in japan and you have to know NOW. cause in the overall look of things. it’s a waste of time… you’re better off dedicating that to reading… like singing along to lyrcs etc etc. it’s mroe fun and efficient right?
EDIT: I saw more clips of the episode and basically that was everyone’s last episode lol. techinically it’s not thohgh cause later on they had the ep where all the people who won at 1 point came back.
DRAMA reviews PART II
PART II because I don’t like having so many pictures load for one post…
I would like love to actually watch more japanese dramas but i barely have enough time to watch all the japanes etlak/variety shows that i want to watch/check out all the korean/japnaese music, watch my american dramas, read the books i want to read that are in japanese/english and other stuff.
I don’t know when i’ll watch them but eventually right? so b.c. of that i’m just going to post this and the list of dramas i’m looking forward to watch. feel free to leave comennts like don’t watch that drama it’s super boring etc. lol. just no goddamnned spoilers.
oh wait i forgot to mention anime… it’s at the bottom of my priority, oh whatevs. well when i get through everything else. for the past 3 years or whateer it’s been pure shit getting released since they’re in an anime buble so once it pops i hope i’ll have time… you know good timing.
AND if this makes any difference… I watched all these dramas with either japanese subs, raw, or with korean subs translated to japanese via google translae. in other words I did not watch any of them with english subtitles.
REALLY GOOD
JIN – I’ve always thought i would never watch jidaigeki and i thought i would drop this drama after 1 ep of “trying” but i got sucked in! sorta like JIN did into ~. But anyways the first half of the first ep is sorta boring and the later part of the ep with kichi is sorta annoying (he keeps saying ~~~) but I was still sucked in from the overall feel of the ep + my anticipation of what is to come. I say give this drama at least like 3 eps and if you still don’t like it then there’s something wrong with you! but seroiusly i don’t know how you don’t get sucked into it by then. it is jidaigeki but it is pretty damn edgy sometimes. Sorta like how mad men is really 
edgy even though it’s in the 50s.. especially in comparison to gossip girl trying really damn hard to be edgy in 2011 (but still this show is sorta fun to watch.. with the fast-forwarding of the annoying conversations they also have to do after the after-math lol). BACK TO JIN: I love the the song/BGM. You know a show is VERY GOOD when it has everything going on for it. the costumes/background music/casting/acting/camera work/etc.
I love the sadness/poignancy that comes from this show. very well done.I didn’t realize the actor who plays saki’s brother is also masumi(?) in nodame cantabile till after I finished watching this show + looked up the actor lol. I
JIN II – LINK TO OFFICIAL SITE (You can read the interviews from the cast members)
Let’s just say lots more stuff happens.. JIn goes to new places, meets new people, a bunch of years pass 
so there’s some changes etc. So anyways it IS interesting. It’s just the first episode was WEAK since it was the dragged out premiere episode as any drama does lol. You can read about it in my previous entry. also the first ep was re-hashy of season 1 or at least it felt like it.
They do give an ending so there IS A POINT TO WATCHING THIS! I heard it’s different from the manga beause of whatever changes they made. I heard the manga’s even better!! I think for the most part people don’t mind the ending. I thought it was well-executed nd I don’t wnat to think about it and see if there’s plot-holes or something. I don’t want to think about that cause it’s just confusing && it requries thinking. but from my impression it’s fine. I have no issues with it. But then somebody on ch-review was like I loved it till the ending… that killed it for me blahblah. they also said it’s too dark and it’s harder to enjoy with the whole family and i agree with that… I don’t like watching that kind of stuff either but yeah it’s there in this sesaon. other harsh criticizers were saying oh jin keeps going on side quests/episodic plots but I thought they were well-done (you know how the aVERAGE dramas hvae the annoying episodic plots that are predictable or just plain cheeesy) like I learned about edo jidai more though i was irritated with one of them.
Like the first season, good poignant sadness NOT typical/forced/embarrassing as hell 1 liter of namida. On the official site which I have to start reading soon to get any other info like new intereviews etc… they have this flash thing and it says FUTATABI KANDOU which menas you’ll be moved again. and that is TRUE. But they did have melodama issues sometimes which I mentioned in that other pohst about JIN but even with that it’s still so good. Like if it was out of 10 it would be like 9.5 or something even considering the bit of melodrama at times. The scenes with the historical people are just AMAZING and I watched each of them at least like 5 times.. one cause it’s hard to follow that dialogue and two because it’s SO WELL DONE. I feel like it probably has a lot of re-watch value just from those SCENES which are amazing. It does have the typical j-drama thing going on too whenEVER saki talks to JIN… there’s too much pausing or long pauses but that’s like how all j-dramas are pretty much so… and i’m sure the pauses aren’t as long and frequent in JIN as compared to like hana yori dango… right? probably. But like seriously the pausing makes it harder to follow the conversation.. it really does. I have to make conscious effort to remember what they’re atlking about otherwise i can’t follow their conversation and then i hvae to rewatch that convo. because they pause i end up rewinding to remind myself what they’re talking about in the first place lo. it defeats the purpose of pausing and talking slow…. cause it’s too slow and pause-y i can’t follow what they’re saying lol. i even have the japanese sus on.
after watching it i asearched for clips on youtube of the cast promoting the show one I came across was them talking about the show and uchino-san (sakamoto ryouma) is talking and he IS SO DIFFERENT. he’s not talking like ryouma at all with the tosa-ben etc.. his facial expression is completely different.. I’m like this is so different, it feels so unnatural. It comes to show what an amazing actor he is! I feel sad that his private life is going bad with the divorce but you know i can’t deny his acting skills! It’s NOT JUST him. LikE I said before JIN meets a lot of new people right. but all the actors they casted were all so amazing and memorable. also for the casting they had to cast people who had to speak differnt dialects like I loved it when saigou/saigo spoke because rhytm or whatver you call it … is very RELAXINg lol (I wonder if it’s also like that for poeple who don’t understand japanese… if so what i’m sayin’ is completely valid lol). So I loved that aspect. From my ears that have listened to a lot of japanese it sounds goood… the dialect he spoke. I’m not sure if the actor actually speaks that dialect or if he just practiced a lot like uchino-san or if that dialect even exists today (it probablydoes right.) but it sounds goood… I don’t hear that annoying accent thing like when hyoujungo/tokyo people try to say naniyanen (kansai-ben phrase). It just sounds annoying and bad wrong. ALSO I really liked the actor for higashi (though i predicted his background or whatever) because he’s good looking lol. But his acing skills are good too. I’ve seen that actor before only on variety/talk shows only a couple times randomly and i just assumed he’s not good at acting (I know it’s not fair to say that) like didn’t he play some nekketsu (hot blooded) teacher or he would seem like he would which would involve annoying melodramatic chesssy scenes/lines. I really enjoyed all the new people. I wasn’t sure if kurogawa (is that her name?)… she came on in ep 2 .. if her acting was goood… like did they really talk like that. she was so cut=e so whatevs (´ε｀ )(´ε｀ )
I don’t know which sesaon is better but I loved both. they’re different. I was first apprehensive because people were like OMG I loved season 1 and season 2 isdisappointing blahblah. I just think they’re so different so I don’t really feel like comparing personally.
ABOUT THE LAST SCENE OF THE LAST EPISODE
this is alittle boy not a little girl. it just so looks cute from the back like a dress or something soo…
this is cg? real? well it looks pretty. There’s lots of pretty scenery scenes to be seen in JIN. YAY I just used that writing technique where you use the same sound over and over… if only jin was sin. what the hell was that crap called? alliteration? why yes it is and it’s the first syllable so it worked!
I think JIN is the BEST J-drama I’ve seen so far (I’m so glad I learned japanese and started watching j-drama otherwise I would have NEVER WATCHED IT or if I did hear about it I would’ve not eve ntried)… to the point of i feel like i have to move hanazkari kimi/watsahitachikyoukasho to gOOD but i really like them too and i get different type of enjoyment out of both of them. I think I would have to say #1 for me at lesat. It’s just they put so much effort into making it like they said they traveled all over japan to film even just one scene and the acting is amazing. It feels like it’s so meant to be that this drama is amazing as it is like the actress who [plays nokaze lived in france for i don’t know how long (i forgot). I love how she plays nokaze with the way she talks and everything… I can’t imagine anyone else playing her role. I just enjoyed watching it so much!
AND THE SONG this time is by none other than hiari ken. love that man and I hope to GOD he is NOT gay it might ruin his songs for me? So anyawys I love it and I heard it a bunch of times after i finished watching it because I MISS THE SHOW and I like the song except for that one part where it sounds like he didn’t reach the note or something or it’s strained? it’s jus tlike i don’t know why they released it like tha. But anyways the lyrics MATCH UP quite well let’s just say… is that a spoiler? but yeah it reminded me of jin a lot as it should and it’s a good choice of song again.
I thought the end of episode 4 or 5 or aorund there was just classic. maybe that’s going too far to say. the scene with ryouma saying oman to that jorou (prostitute in edo jidai) and i just thought it wasn’t CHEAP at all. it keeps that sex appeal factor without the cheapness… It’s realistic and makes the scene more memorable and it actually does a purpose other than just sex apppppeal or whateve ryou call that. It was a just great way to show us the urgency and the seriousness of that situation and how close it was etc etc. So I thought it was SOSO SO brilliant and at that moment I was like OMG Jin reached a level that I never thought J-drama could ever reach ( since i watched lots of american dramas and american dramas have lots of sex in it lol) from the time I watched my first j-drama which was bloody monday (orz OTL) which I found to be average lol. and you know fan-service in anime is SO SO LAME and SOSO UNREALISTIC AND SOSO UNNATARUAL and pathetic. I HATE OTAKU PANDERING! but i can’t be helped since they’re in horrible horrible financial economical conditions. So i feel bad for them and i hope they don’t actually like making shtty otaku pandering anime but they have to … to survive.
Caps from last ep😀
GOOD
GONZO – I still didn’t finish watching it. fail. lol. hopefully sooooooon. It’s good it’s just i don’t have time😦
ABOVE AVERAGE
can’t decide… it’s b.t. good/average level
Mop Girl – It was so much fun. A pleasure to watch. It has its problems and good parts. It could be more deep and whatnot. It’s actually funny. the team work/chemistry between kitakwa keiko and tanihara shousuke is good. I love tanimura shosuke😉
I really like how they casted kitakawa keiko and really utilized her cuteness like that episode with hakurankyou or something or the other times when they make her dress up in cute disguises/costumes. If it was ayase haruka i don’ tknow… i don’t like her!! as of now (2011) kitakwa keiko’s sorta fading… with like ishara satomi/kuriyama chiaki rising. Like she wasn’t even mentioned in the london heart’s episode when they choose the number one girl… Like no one chose her… unless one person did?? doubt it.
one thing that i didn’t like that stood out was the the guest actors’ acting ability was LOW which is really bad since the situations those guest actors’ characters are placed are in are sorta hard to act out.. it requires acting skills… so we get some weird overreacting/hyperness BUT at least the main people can act. Kitakwa keiko is fine, eikura nana is NOT.
also some of the episodic plots are weak but i love some of the ways they dress up for the occasion each episode. if you just watch it for fun like you’re supposed to then mmaybe you can overlook some of the weak points like me.
SOME LINKS to transcripts i found online just in case.. this + korean subs->japanese hopefully covers any hard to catch lines.
http://ameblo.jp/cm215408081/entry-10060049050.html
http://ameblo.jp/hagumi/theme-10005670038.html
But seriously… sometimes I follow it fine and then there’s scenes where i cannot catch ANYTHING they say… it’s either i don’t know what the words or it’s how they say it… I would listen to a billion times over and i still have no idea what the faq is being said/talked about and then i find the transcript like the ameblog up there… (japanese people who can catch that stuff since they only speak japanese and understand japanese unless they’re billingual) and the ni go oh.. then i do the soramimi -effect thing and go yeah it does sound like that BUT without it i would still be like wtf they saying. It’s usually i know what they’re saying… I just can’t catch it.
Gyne ギネ 産婦人科の女たち – This was one took me by surprise. It’s one of those dramas i never would’ve watched because it came out fall of 09 when tokyo dogs, liar game, fumo chitai, samurai high school, jin also came out so i heard NOTHING abt it. But luckily because somebody left the commercial on the avi for some other drama… which led me to watch a commercial for this show (ep 5 or 6 or something). From watching that I was 
like OMG even if this drama is crappy I have to at least watch that scene or episode. It’s the court room scene of course. but I thought just as drama it was really entertaining especially because I was watching monster and mother at the same time… unlike those two the camera work and lighting and other fundamental stuff was done well (there are j-dramas that can’t even get these fundamentals right) &&& It just didn’t have the usual/cliche/crappy j-drama feel or that feel was kept to a minimum. I just felt like the episodic plots/overarching plots weren’t the usual tired, typical plots (ie. samurai high school). It just kept me interested with the plot/arcs…. they were interesting and seemed thought-out and well done, One could argue that this show is more like sanpujinka no bakatachi but I just really liked as drama entertainment. It made me want to watch the next episode, etc (which is you know logical… that’s why you watch the drama because you like it NOT because a bunch of losers praise it somewhere on the internet). Of course it can be better and the way it ended was like… not really an ending. but seriously WHY DID THEY SAy 神ドラマ to MOTHER…. no it’s not mother it’s MAZAA lol. ugh so silly.
AVERAGE
Liar Game II -It’s not as good sesaon 1 because 1. it is 45 minutes? instead of 35 minutes (sesaon 1) Yes it is dragged out. They play the song (I love the song tho ) every episode and they stretch the reactions whenever something shocking happens which happens many times every episode because it is liar game. but the thing is… it’s just not that shocking or interesting. There were a couple tricks that i thought was interesting like the round with the cards and…. probably something else. Like last season they don’t develop the side characters that much at all or the main characters that much it’s just like… i’m sick of it. what’s the point? i feel bad for the actors… they have nothing to accomplish at work. If you watch season 2, you can pretty much be really disappointed in the movie. the movie is by the company (not part of the original manga so i guess i should go read the manga) and so the story is not that good. it’s like a mesh of sesaon 1 tricks and season 2 tricks so it’s like i’ve seen that. They even have an X… which was an awesome arc from season 1. I guess watch if you’re a fan just don’t forget to fast-forward?
Oh and poeple on 2ch think that part of the reason of the downfall of liar game was toda erika… and how she is no longerg pure and innocent anymore. lol. something about she went out with v6 member or someone and how her hair is brown… and well obviously people change and grow up and all that so… we can’t make her confine herself to whatever for our crazy fan mentality but…. I agree with them that… she is just different. If her character NAO changed maybe it owuldn’t have been such a big deal. but seriously it’s ust so UNREALISTIC how her chaacter doesn’t change at lalllllll. not even at the end of the movie???? I really wish they did stuff with akiyama and nao.. .then the movie might been actually good…. they sorta did stuff but not really so in the end they didn’t do anything as far as that realm is concerned.
BAD======
Samurai High School
I wish they chose another actor for the “friend role”. i don’t want to insult his acting skills or whatever, but i just feel like it’s too much of a stretch. the way he talks is like…. pissing me off. He won’t open his mouth that wide or something and that voice that’s supposed to be all meek or whatever… I don’t know. It just pisses me off. I wish they made that character more believable somehow. he’s a big ass white guy for gawds sakes.
It’s fun for a few eps… It’s like a silly/dumb/fun. THEN It gets boring and really just ordinary (the storylines are so ordinary and pointless-seeming). I don’t like the miura actor and i guess he was okay in this drama but i tihnk overdid it a little but who knows how a _ from _ would act in a _ so maybe it is on the ball? but the fact is the ending is shit and so…. NOOOOOOOOOOOO. By the way i got bored by this by ep 3 or 4… episodic storylines were very weak. so i fastforwarded 5 and 6 like crazy then just skipped to 9 because it became a chore to watch. Then I fast-forwarded episode 9 like even more crazy and then i was like such a shit ending. can’t even make a disucssion out of that ending except it sucks balls. but still at the same time i don’t care about it…😦
AND this screenshot is NOT spoilery if you know what scene this is from then you know it’s not. it’s just so dumb ugh.
PAPA TO MUSUME NO Nanokakan – It was fun/ny and cute/seemed good at first but after a few eps it gets old. In fact, it gets dumb. In fact the last episode was unbearable and a lot of fast-forwarding was done to finish watching it. It is an interesting premise it’s just it can’t even last (by “last” I mean be intersting) 7 eps.
Saito-san
The third lady (u know what i mean if you watched probably)’s acting was bad. it was like for reals? the director allowed this? It’s mostly the way she said her lines as opposed to the actual lines. The way she said it was so strange…. just not very sincere-sounding.
It’s like you don’t have to watch it. It’s not that good or that… anything. It has cute kids and well sometimes it’s done well but sometimes not… j-subs to all the eps here
MOTHER – This and kaibutsu-kun drive me insane because they both are BAD dramas in my eyes yet people were praising them like crazy especially mother. they wrote like kami dorama (kami= god) and i’m like no… It’s extremely slow, boring, melodramatic. I hate hate hate the main actress. I don’t think i’ll be able to watch any other drama with her in it because the way she talks is irritating. she whispers everything and it’s like… whispering does not equal good acting. as much as the guy from densha otoko was annoying, he was fine in watashitachi no kyoukasho but i don’t know about her if she’s going to do this acting forever!
And the little girl in the show is getting all famous and getting on this tv shows… not that i really care. she’s okay.
p.s. I wonder if there was some sorta significance with this scene (the screenshot that i took) with those things she reached for… i wouldn’t know lol.
I was actually excited to watch this show becaue they kept talking about this show on various japanese info shows and the praise on the online boards and whatnot. they’re like oh they take such a serious theme and blahblahblah but it’s just not well-done so no.
there’s like no japanese to learn from it either. like there’s barely any talking.
Oh and here’s a thing from 2-ch matome that I really really really AGREE WITh.
マザーは、後世に語り継がれる程の糞ドラマ
もはや放送事故レベル
マザーってギャグドラマだろｗｗ
一分に一回突っ込み所のあるドラマなんて初めて見たｗ
役者も大根ばっかりｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ
よくあんなに下手くそな役者ばかり集められたなｗｗｗｗ
子役なんて見てて痛々しかった
顔もブッサイクだしｗ
松雪も糞ウザかった
何が｢つﾞくﾞみﾞーーー｣だよ
お前の声は人を不快にさせるんだからテレビに出てくんなよ
死ね
マザーは昔の家なき子みたいなもん
10年たったら誰も見むきもしない
かといって今高視聴率な訳でもない
早い話屑ｗ
展開が非常に都合よすぎる
リアリティありそうに見えてまったくリアリティがない。
It’s from ichiban TSUMARANAI dorama thread. sometimes that thread is more helpful than ichiban omoshiroi dorama.
it’s not as 涙頂戴 as 1 litter of teals. but . you know
Kaibutsu-kun – It’s for kids. There’s melodramatic scenes… which always follows oono. i don’t know why. It just gets lame and more and more boring and ugh… I know everyone is really tryiing hard to make this show and everything with the special make up and wahatnot (like alll the promotoin on the TV) but the script is just… maybe it’s good enough for kids but not for me. actually the dramas that get promoted like crazy with actors coming out on the talk/variety/news shows usually suck the most… i’ve noticed.
I can’t believe the 3 d movie is coming out…
STAND UP! I tried to stick with this drama for too long (so boring and slow). should’ve given up or skipped/fast-forwarded earlier. it’s just ugly… people’s hairstyles/clothes etc lol. but i heard that DAIGO’s acting in the LADY hanzai profiler was really good that he was better than kitakawa keiko and the other main cast lol.
MAGERARENAI ONNA
I saw episode 1, parts of ep 2, and a few minutes of the last episode. Um this drama is crappy. It’s very boring, nagasaku (the actress who played the friend? or pseudofriend?) is really really annoying. Her acting is just nothing special just exactly what I expect which makes it so boring. Episode 2 was really boring and i knew what parts they were going to make dramatic or shocking or whatever at those set scenes but like it’s just not and i predicted it while i was wtaching ( it’s not that hard)>. ALSO I watched the preview 3rd episode and I was like wow that 3rd episode is going to be torture to watch b.c. it’s not going to be sad or anyhting… it’s just what it is.
I knew nothing was going to happen till the last episode so I just watched the last episode after fast=-forwading through the second episode. though i must admit even out of that i watched the last 5 minutes or something. I was just like this is lame… absolutely nothing has happened – this show is just depressing. I got sick of this show after the first episode and then the second just confirmed that this show has nothing much to offer. I love tanihara shousuke-san but he seems to be in bad dramas a lot lol j/k. who knows. DO NOT FORCE YOURSELF TO WATCH THIS DRAMA TO LEARN JAPANESE JUST BECAUSE IT HAS THE JAPANESE SUBS UP ON D-ADDICTS, same for KAIBUTSU MOTHER ETC unless you ACTUALLY enjoy watching those dramas. They really are just sucky. you’re better off watching a drama you actually like/enjoy with korean subs that are translated to japanese subs which I discussed in a previous post.
stuff I watched real quick cause I fast-fowarded/only watched parts of last&first ep and it most likely belongs in the BAD.BELOW AVERAGE/average section if i did watch more of it to decide… but it’s not worth my time.
mioka – lol it makes 1 liter of namida look good. BUT it was fun watching the actress on shabekuri 007.
shoukojo seira – boring boring boring.
Anna-san no Omame– at first i was like interesting. then i realized it’s just really annoying. I liked that one joke with the mannueqin… that was really unexpected and I thought it was funny. but everything else is just so annnnnnoying and never ending and never changing. I think Isaw ep 1 and then 2-4 was painful to watch and tthen i fastforwarded watched the last ep ….
UNFAIR –I stopped at ep 7 or 5 or something. It’s just boring and i know there are plots I just don’t feel like thinking about this show. I suggest watching BONES. It always comes down to Is it as good as Bones? is it even close? is it half as interesting? for these kind of shows… and usually the answer is NO so NO.
RIKON BENGOSHI – amami yuuki THING. it’s just not good enough. some over-expression like building shaking etc which could be seen as bad or good. it’s just not enough to warrant me to finish watching this… something is missing. it’s not enough/ good enough etc. they try to make it interesting with the acting and dialogue/scenes but it’s feels like they’re just trying too hard. I mean i guess i could see why some people enjoy this b.c. they like what i just mentioned BUT i’m not one of them.
BOSS – amami what’s her face always plays the same character over and over. I can see that the writer’s are trying to make it interesting with all these engaging conversations b.t. amano and whoever ex. the episoe with shida mirai… it’s as if the show is pretending to be better than it actually is which is not that good…. BUT it’s just not enough. it’s just not… especially if I start comparing it to BONES. I love kenkobayashi-san on like talk shows and i’m not going to criticize his acting in this drama but like there really is nothing special going on with the cast/characters really either. his acting was fine, i have no complaints…
Dragon Zakura – It’s really really dry/boring. I don’t think it’s that interesting. I ‘m not that obsessed with abe hiroshi. I was like if it is the usual slow/boring/dry drama then at least i’ll watch for whatever tips for learning but even with that mentality i stopped watching afte rep 2 or something. I am not obsessed with YAMAPI but I did enjoy his acting and everything in NOBUTA PRODUCE.
GTO – I couldn’t watch episode 1. sorry i can’t take this old 90s vibe by that I mean slow paced boring etc. the anime is slow-paced boring too BTW -for the anime there are some good eps and funny parts but just too slow sometimes. people go crazy over this one but i won’t lol.
HOTARU NO HIKARI – so this is why i do not like ayase haruka. she is NOT cute. if you want cute go watch MOP GIRL. I feel like FUJI-something nao-something is always in crappy dramas. this show is not funny, boring, slow. not much going on with the story. I think I watched till ep 3 but i just hate ayase haruka in those drama. it’s just really uninteresting.
MR. BRAIN – I saw the ep with nakama yukie cause i read somewhere about her acting. um it’s just this show is not good enough. it comes down to is it as smart as bones and the answer is NOOOO
No pictures added for these because it takes time and work to do that. and more importantly, none of these dramas are THAT visually appealing (how shallow) anyway…
&&& randomly my anime reviews on Elfen Lied
Honey and Clover, Azumanga Daioh, Fruits Basket
Full Metal Panic & Kare Kano
DRAMAS I WANT TO WATCH SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON… to watch list.
IF you want to suggest some to me go ahead though i don’t know when i’ll get around to watching it
Shibatora
Majo Saiban
tiger dragon
RINJOU
quiz show season 1. season 2= NEVER
白夜行
tetsu no hone.
nihonjin no shiranai nihongo- i heard it was crappy tho so maybe i ‘ll watch a little to see.. do like the actress
tobo bengoshi
Love Shuffle – J- subs!!!
http://jpsubbers.positivehosting.com/Japanese-Subtitles/@Reairs/LoveShuffle/
nouryouku with tanimura shosuke & ishihara satomi
CHASE – on ep 1。 lOVE THE song. 退行 菊地成孔 It used to be up on youtube.I love the song so much i ripped from the video file so i could listen to it. jazz at its best to say the least yo.
GONZO – didn’t finish
atami no sousakan- jsubs relesaed.
suzuki sensei jsubs relesaed.
carnation – love the shiina ringo single and the other 2 songs on the single.
soredemo ikiteyuku
shinya shokudou2.…do ihave towatch the prequel plus itlooks reallly boring…so ill try 1ep?
youkai nignen bemu =is this another kaibutsu-kun? surprisd that kamenashi isn’t dragging the ratings down lol
kaseifu n omita – it has mad high ratings. it even beat jin 2’s finale ratings by like a lot?….kaseifu got 31.5% at one moment during the airing of episode 8 . but the average is 29.6% and 29.0% in kantou and kansei, respectively.
jin 26.1% but the most views at any second was 31.7% so it did beat kaseifu in that aspect but not the overall aspect. this 31.7% was like the part when we get to that new phase in the last episode if you remembers.
erika = that kuriyama chiaki drma? lol not sure. but i love the single.. .both songs!
joou no kyoushitsu SP – did not know they existed lol.
I FEEL LIKE this list was longer? it’s probably somewhere on this computer.
ACtually it is a lot loonger. I started using evernote instead of notepad. I don’t have to worry about losing stuff and it’s a good way to organizae plus I can access it anywhere. I can also search multiple “notepad” files . the only downside is it’s not as simple as notepad so let’s say I was scrolling the secret garden script while re-watching ep for certain scenes that dre wme on.. it goes crazy and moves it all the way up and then i have to rescroll down… which is a bitch and unnecessary. so in this aspect, notepad kicks evernote’s ass…. if it had one.
J-drama “Reviews”~
Gonna share my opinion on some J-dramas to get recommendations, get stuff off my chest, etc. Sorry about my poor writing skills but well i don’t like to read books so I can’t help it ? But I do diligently follow the CC on my tv as i watch my american darma lol… that’s why I’m so good at spelling (all these spelling errosr are due to this laptop keyboard/ my fast typing skills lol)
there are NO spoilers or PLOT summaries etc (unless you highlight) because I personally believe in going in as blind as possible so that I’m not bored/have some sort of preconception… plus there’s no NEED. I hate people who paste long summaries in their reviews. It’s like I came to read a review not the summary + review.
Hana Yori Dango – Overrated. The melodrama sorta killed it for me. Also it was way too manga at times. There were parts that juts made me want to not watch the next episode. Like the end of episode 2 with
yume to ame no ato ni- watching now. really bad BGM. It reminds me of the 90s or something lol.Gonna share my opinion on some Japanese dramas to get recommendations, get stuff off my chest, etc.Sorry about my poor writing skills but well i don’t like to read books so I can’t help it ? Another blog with jdrama reviews
First I’ll share my pet-peeves as far as dramas go.
1. I hate korean drama. The main girl actress (in the 20s or whatever) always pisses me off. Her bitchy whining and complaining always does. The ajumma bitching is bad too. Not sure which is worse(probably ajumma cause they have more years on them so more experience in bitching). It’s just boring to me. Plus they drag like no tomorrow. There’s like way more reasons than this but I’ll leave it there. And I’m Korean so
2. I don’t like melodrama. By all means this does not mean any scene where someone cries but for some reason for k/j-dramas, especially k-dramas most of the crying scenes are just melodramatic. Especially korean dramas with making the male character cry… It’s not even crying, it’s like bawling and they like zoom in and they just show that scene for like what seems like 15 minutes. PLUS the music makes it a whole lot worse, the melodramatic BGM. Well I can’t watch it, it’s too pathetic. And it’s not sad.
LIKE in koreanversion of HYD (which I didn’t watch) gawd I hate JANDI, I don’t know if I hate her name more. so ridiculous!! lol.
Domyouji is crying WTF. And I heard Hanazawa Rui cries too. LOL Hanazawa Rui crying… No not the hanazawwa rui part, the guy who plays hanazawa rui in the korean V. He can’t act at all so that scene musta been hella funny.
Actually I don’t remember if Domyouji cries in HYD or II but I think he probably didn’t and if he did it probably not as melo as this? Well HYD is pretty melo in its own respects like that rain scene in II.
3. Draggy, slow etc is just UGH. I don’t like the draggy/slowness of j/k-dramas. There’s a ton more but I’ll just get into as I review the dramas that commit that “cliche” or whatever. Basically I hate TYPICAL K-J-drama.
I wrote about it in my lang-8 blog~HERE and HERE. But there’s still more than bother me.
If you want to know my anime peeves HERE (more reviews in the profile sectioN). there’s a lot of spoiler lol cause they don’t allow spoiler tags nemore but anyways all the hater ones are hilarious for the most part.
Drama reviews:Sorry if some of the pictures are really random but I wanted interesting/pretty screenshots.
REALLY GOOD – As in it definitely made me want to watch the next episode. Also the pace is good. None of them are draggy or slow. They all have good BGM and theme song, etc.
Nobuta wo produce (2005) – It’s not melodramatic The comedy/drama/portray l of etc etc is just done so well. If you pay attention and think about stuff that you can see how the several plots in the episode connect to each other (I only realized it when I read the dramanote entries). There were parts where the quality was just high like episode 4 (That scene was awesome and I couldn’t predict it). It won all those awards and it was my first high school J-drama (good choice :)) I loved Akira’s “lingo”, it was cute. It was like okay and then I kept watching and the next thing I knew I was on ep 10 and well that’s the last ep. I really enjoyed watching this! JAPANESE SUBS on that russian site with the j-drama subs!
Hanazakari no Kimitachi (2007) – I thought this show was gonna be s***from the ikemen paradise/picture but I was mistaken. It’s just fun to watch. It was really nice to see a huge cast be utilized. I loved most of the comedy (hated some of it? the fanservicey/dumb kind?), but some of the “fan-service” bothered me. Some of the comedy is cheap/forced/fan-service/the-obvious to the point I can’t stand it but they ALSO have good/actual comedy too so I don’t know…. I want to forgive it… The background music is to die for. I was so amazed that a J-drama could have such good BGM that I didn’t get sick of by ep 5 if I’m lucky. Episode 1 was all right and then it just got better and better and so I got into it. It’s like a good teen movie for me and it’s not vulgar/crude like some american teen/parody movies because… it’s japanese. Usually cruder the worse the movie?
GOOD NEWS: japanese subs for ep 1-6 here!
watashitachi no kyoukasho (2007)–
I was recommended this drama by someone and it just has a really good story. I was just dying to find out more eevery episode. Acting is really good… I don’t think it’s melodramatic.. to me melodramatic are the the dramas i listed in the average/below average sections.. The only problem is that it’s sorta slow at times. Even though it’s slow I still watched 2/3 eps in a day (which is i still want to put it here even though it’s slow-paced). It won best scriptwriter and as expected there are twists and all that. I love the ending song / the scene they show with it….. In fact the BGM was REALY good irregardless of the repetition because they were like classical songs/intense songs by rafmonaiv? lol (that composer shows up in nodame too but different song) with an orchestra or something. They chose the PERFECT songs for the sad/intense/etc type type scenes and I never got sick of the song… they really elevated any scene they were used in. I don’t recall hearing any of those songs before I watched the drama but I’m so glad I heard these songs…. especially that intense song… it works with the scene so well. Also Susumu from HYD is in this & his hairstyle is good so I was really pleasantly surprised. I love his voice. lol. and his role is quite diff from susumu to say the least (in a good way)
REUSABLE MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS
So I am making this post because like most users of reusable menstrual products I WISH I knew about them sooner. By that I mean I didn’t know that was an option. All I heard is that back centuries ago they used rags. I wondered that was sufficient and whatnot and I just didn’t want to think about that since it’s not my problem. I thought that we were “blessed” to be living in a modern era with the “technology”to deal with periods. I did my fair share of googling about periods when I got it since I just couldn’t talk about it with anyone but I never ever ever came across reusable products. I am certain that I found out about these products from youtube when youtube recommended videos on the side.
anyway my first reaction was “GROSS” like anyone else. But I also thought that the girl made some really interesting points that were persusasive and valid.
here’s the list of reasons that pushed me…
-comfort – this is so big especially with sleeping with the heat. i don’t have problems with getting yeast infections or anything like that but it is uncomfortable. one thing i hated was how that stay-dry mesh thing sticks to me. you know a japnese youtuber was saying how american pads are like diapers because they’re so huge and she has to bring the megami pads from japan… also i read some japaense girl’s blog post where she said how they american pads are so unbreathable and plasticy. from reading this information i think most likely japanese and korean pads are probably superior in comfort but they’re probably still just as bad for your health. THE OTHER ASPECT of this is that for me is that my period stops an starts after a certain point so i really hated the idea of suffering the discomfort of the pads when it wasn’t even “necesary.” i was reading on a japanese informtaional spammy interenet site that it’s a bad sign if it is’nt a “continuous flow” but that’s jus thow it is for me…
-healthier. the disposable stuff are really bad for you and obviously if you get the “organic cotton” brand you’ll burn through a lot of cash real fast. they are chock full of chemicals. so if you’re a person that is health conscious and you like “natural” “organic” food you should also look into this. i’m sure the disposable products increase your risk of cancer. they say it doesn’t contain that much so it’s not that bad for you. i know the saying is that anything can be toxic even water if you consume too much. (some poor frat pledges died from drinking too much water😦 ) .. but i just don’t want to expose myself to carcinogens and irritants if i don’t need to.
-save money
-reusable so there’s no pressure or reason to try to “stretch out” your supplies. adding to this you can change as often as you want
– better for the environment. the stats for how long it takes for diapers, pads to break down are incredibly depressing and the sheer volume is mind-blowing and hard to imagine.
-you don’t have to go to the pharmacy or big box store to stock up (I’ve never done this before… by myself. i imagine if i did i would be super stressed out and hope there’s a girl cashier working and if not i would go to another store lol…and try to buy other things i don’t really particularly need or aren’t even good deals)
-lighter,shorter periods – so this isn’t a guarantee but it’ definitely an attractive incentive! there’s also less cramps but i don’t really have this problem. i for one do not experience a difference. -customizable – length, absorbancy, thickness (the thinnest one i’ve found is fig leaves pads or novel red’s ninja pad. they’re both pretty damn thin), material, design, color…. hell there’s even ones in cute shapes like i saw one shaped as bear head or something
Im’ sure someone can make a list that’s just as long vouching for disposable products but for me comfort aspect alone makes reusables trumps disposables. i really feel bad for babies. i wonder if they are in perpetual discomfort or are the products better now?
The way i transitioned was… i was totally turned off but curious after watchin probably one of bree’s videos. Like everyone was thinking i thought why is this girl making all these videos on pads and menstruation and “GROSS.” the idea repulsed me from the years of “condtioning” you could say just because i’m so used to the “modern solution.” So I jumped on the free liner + pay for shipping deal from luna pads & party in my pants just to try. that was enough to win me over. it wasn’t perfect, in fact i don’t even use them now but that got me to order stuff from etsy. i’m not poor and i work full time so i got enough so i can wash them all at the end of the cycle. i’m still very conscientious of how much i spend becuase i tihnk of the suffering and the woork i had to do to make that money. i know some people buy 6 then wash them in the middle or make their own or buy used ones etc etc to save money. i did not do that… BUT YOU KNOW i was thinking if someobdy ordered one pad from one seller they could be turned off from reusables if that pad didn’t work out. i highly recommend checking out different sellers because not all reusables are equal. like i said there are different designs, prints, toppers, cores, thickness. don’t base your ultimate decision to convert or not based on one pad.
other tip: consider wing extenders, try different underwear
recommended videos
toppers :
cores
other videos
here are sellers I recommend if somehow i was able to interest somebody and they’re interested. of course do as much as research as possible before purchasing. definitely think before you place your order. despite all the positive and rave reviews if it doens’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. i recommend getting 1 or 2 from one seller in different lengths or absorbencies. also remember you usually get what you pay for. even if it seems like such a good deal with 6 or 7 or for x dollar if it doens’t work that’s x dollars and 6 or 7 pads down the drain.
yurtcraft -‘nuf said. great sewing
mimi’s dreams – go for the hemp core! i recommend the 10-in
fig leaves pads ( you hvae to join her facebook group otherwise you will never get one) – probably the thinnest one i have and the only one with a special snap that isn’t a circle. it’s a star!!!
novel red (they had black friday sale in 2015) – for liners and pads . they have the ninja pads and the crushed velvet!! they also has obv now but… i haven’t tried that.
tree huggers (they have black friday sales) – i have organic bamboo velous from them and don’t even interest in minkee.
wee essentials – for liners
sleeping doe – flawless sewing and quality like yurtcraft
county cloth creations – some people love them but they’re just okay to me
green4less- great prices for the quality. i was impressed with the stitching and the general rule is that the pads look better in person than in pictures. i think they’re especially cost-effective if you want huge overnight pads
annybells essentials – amazing sewing
cloth dreams – obv
precious star pads – she’s the only one i can find that has BAMBOO charcoal which is a stay dry facric. also the prices on her wet bags are fantastic. even though the shipping was RIDICULOUS since i’m the usa the wet bags offset the shipping costs wet bags are so over-priced on etsy
mama bear baby wear – i like her tuckables… great price and quality not interested in her pads though. plus ihear they are VERY wide s oyou should ask for an extra snap if you’re gipong to order from her.
cozy folk –
COZY cloth – customizable and thin. i’m not too into flannel
domino pads – some peope love them and their oyutube video is very persuasive and she givers great reasons on why she designed her pads the way she did but i don’t love them and definitely pricey.
mothermoon pads??
cleaning routines:
of course this is an intimidating aspect and i for one cannot throw in used pads without doing any pre-washing. i feel grossed out about that.
ELIZABETH’S VIDEO.
so what I do is a variation of elizabeth’s video.
I soak all of them in cold wtaer in a plastic trashcna for about 2 hours or so then dump the water out. then i fill up the bucket with cold water and add a mix of oxi-clean and scrapings of buncha’s farmer stick for 12-24 hours. i put hot water (not hot to the point where the plastic melts) and oxi-clean and the scrapings in a plastic bottle and shake it and take the cap off. i dump the water out again and then throw the pads in the washing machine and wash with a full scoop ofnellie’s detergent. dry them in the dryer then hang to try using a contraception with a lot of clips.
i modified her method by doing an initial water soak like this because after 2 hours there’s a good amount of saturation and loosening that’s happened. AND if i soak it any longer it”ll turn into the “soaking method” which REEKS.
if you care about stains you have to check for staining before you throw them in the washing macine and most definitely before you throw them in the dryer.
i was intrigued by cakefate’s new video on her updated cleaning method which REALLY gets them clean.
VIDEO ON LINERS
i recommend wee essentials.
I’m a convert. i am american so i knmow americans tend to be defensive and dismissive…. also i am aware that reusable cloth pads is very niche still at least in america. i understand exactly how people are grossed out because i used to feel that way. i haven’t talked to anyone about this in real life but i definitely want more people to know about this option and by that i mean really understand the option. i know it’s very easy to be close-minded and i think to some extent there’s this pressure that you have to to react with an “EW” on top of the visceral reaction to dismiss this concept from all those years of conditioning and lack of information.
Wearing Sunscreen Everyday
if you watch Japanese tv you will hear a lot of SHIGAISEN, hiyakedome especially during the summer (I recently saw this show on youtube and it was pretty interesting minus shit quality audio. whatever, i’ mglad i was able to watch it. since there’s nothing on CLUBBOX YOUKU TUDOU ETC.I’m not as hardcore as those people lol i live in america. i’m afriad of getting judged with parasols etc. I am a firm believer of making vitamin d with skin that’s not on my face, neck or hands ). Japanese people are really obsessed with skin damage caused by UV light. There are people that carry around umbrellas or parasols regardless of weather conditions. this trend also exists in korea. I probably took note of this in 2009 or 2010 because that’s when I really got into Japanese TV and started improving drastically from uh? to daily conversation to advanced? I hear so much about it which compelled me to want to follow their advice and prevent aging because I know those WRINKLE creams do not work and they’re super overpriced. Prevention is more effective than dealing with the problem once it occurs. This applies to almost everything including your skin
Despite hearing all that info about skin damage such as UVA = a is for aging, UVB = b for burning I couldn’t get myself to put on sunscreen everyday on my face. even after hearing that neither glass nor clouds block uv light I still couldn’t. I did consciously try to put sunscreen on during the summer when i knew i was going outside and it was a particularly sunny and hot day. Since I put sunscreen on under those conditions I don’t think I ever met the wait 30 mintuse before going outside rule.
My desire to put sunscreen on a daily basis was deterred by the greasiness and stickinesss of the sunscreen. I hated how it made my face really shiny and made my hair stick to my face. It’s not pleasant and this is america so people will ask “why is your face so shiny. why are you wearing sunscreen when it’s not sunny (this is a really STUPID QUESTION btw. yes the uva/uvb is probably higher on sunny days but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any when it’s cloudy or winter. 90% of aging is due to PHOTOAGING. photoagaing = sun. it’s all about the cumulative, casual exposure) , why are you wearing sunscreen even though it’s winter”. Regardless of people asking me questions or making comments it’s unpractical feeling gross and greasy everyday. by the way, the recommendation is to wear sunscreen everyday regardless of cloudiness or season (there’s less uv rays during the winter because it’s all about the accumulative damage. Furthermore snow is one of most reflective surfaces for uv light ). btw i’ve never wore sunscreen during winter even when i went skiing but I didn’t get sunburned because I’m not white and i guess i didn’t ski too long?
So this past week,\ I thought there’s probably a safe, effective sunscreen that could be used daily on my face and I just have to find it. It is 2014 and if there’s iphones why can’t there be some sunscreens that can be used daily. I did my research online using EWG, reviews, blogs and I narrowed it down to a couple. after a while I realized that I should go after a sunscreen that has ZINC only (concentration should be significantly high) – I saw some chart that had a bunch of sunscreen active ingredients and it had a circle next each one. the circle was filled in black to the extent it blocked or protected your skin against UVA or UVB light. for some of them the circles were partial or half or it only blocked UVA or only UVB. ONLY zinc had 2 black circles.
This made me reject COOLA which is known for matte sunscreen (I never knew such a thing existed) because it contained zinc and titanium. apparently they had something called plant UV coola sunscreen which only had zinc and high concentration at that. I’m only interested in that sunscreen in their line but it seems discontinued despite winning awards. i hope they bring it back so i can try it. Or I hope they make something similar to that. all the ones in the line for the physical sunscreen has zinc and titanium at low concentrations. the baby one has a huge concentration of zinc but I Read in reviews it’s hard to get the sunscreen out and hard to rub it in.
upon reading the reviews on amazon I realized some of them just cannot be used on the face let alone daily because they’re too white or too hard to rub in or too greasy etc. I also read into the FDA requirements on my quest for a good sunscreen because they tightened up the regulation in 2012. there’s requirements of putting the drug facts table on the back or including certain directions. the sunscreen can only say BROAD SPECTRUM SPF 30 on the LABEL if it passed the standards set by the FDA. if the sunscreen didn’t pass broad spectrum standards it can only say SPF 30. broad spectrum means good uva protection. The reason why i ended up doing this was because a bunch of “luxury” sunscreen brands didn’t seem to have that drug facts table anywhere or have the exact text broad spf 30 which let to my conclusion that it’s a moisturizer with sunscreen ingredients but it’s efficacy isn’t proven. that is either because they didn’t submit the data or it failed the requirements set by the FDA. it shows they never submitted to the fda.. I wonder if it’s legal or is it fine because it’s a moisturizer with spf properties as opposed to a sunscreen with moisturizng properties? I was really interested in those luxury ones at first because people were saying how easy it was to apply and how they aren’t shiny or greasy in the least or even matte. also some of them have zinc and titanium and the concentrations are low. in the end my number one requirement is that it actually works.
my realization of the fda requirements also led to the rejection of DEVITA. though it contains 20% zinc it doesn’t have any of the FDA required labeling (as far as i can tell on images on the internet) so I have no reason to believe it actually works (I also read reviews where people said they got burned using it). I think devita is a moisturizer with sunscreen ingredients as opposed to a sunscreen that happens to be not greasy which is why they don’t care to get the fda approval? apparently the new formulation sucks and it leaves a white cast and pills easily.
DIY sunscreen; NO, DO NOT DO THIS. do not do DIY crayon lipstick either. lead, mercury, arsenic etc is BAD for you. Non-toxic doesn’t mean you can eat it! people don’t seem to realize how lenient the regulation of cosmetics is. if you did then you’d make a good guess that the regulation of crayons isn’t going to be the most stringent since most people don’t eat it. most lipsticks are toxic for you anyway so i wonder which is worse ? I find DIY to be comforting and makes people feel smart because they’re saving money and they figured out how to make something effective using stuff in their house or stuff they can easily obtain stores or the internet. some things should not be DIY and sunscreen is one of them.
VITAMIN D deficiency – I’m not going into detail into this. I will say that I’m concerned with my FACe, NECK, and HANDS. I read about the benefits of vitamin D and the adverse effects from being deficient in it so I’m not going to become a vampire…. i just prefer to make vitamin d using skin that’s not on my face, neck, hands. also you consume vitamin d in your diet but i don’t know if that’s sufficient because there’s so many conflicting articles on the internet. I wonder what percentage of japanese women are vitamin d deficient
JAPANESE SUNSCREENS – I’ve heard about them because they’re so watery or matte or light. My beef is that they have a lot of ingredients (I’m looking for a daily sunscreen so i don’t want so many chemicals on my face everyday). The reason why they blend in so well and light/matte is because they put in silicones and alcohol. the latter is drying. also i have to research if the claims on the sunscreen are actually validated through some sort of Japanese FDA but that’s a pain in the ass. ALSO I have to figure out the active ingredient and make sure the percentage is sufficiently high. I have those AND other reasons anyway so i’m not looking into japanese sunscreen
KOREAN SUNSCREENS / BB CREAMS – like the Japanese ones they have a shit ton load of ingredients and i have to go reserach how safe and effective they are blahblah. don’t want to deal with that. From what I can tell from watching korean tv shows that investigate the safety of cosmetics they don’t seem all that safe. not sure if they’re safer than american cosmetics or around the same but they’re definitely not safe. – by the way the videos i linked to the text were MAD fun to watch. I highly recommend them if you’re into korean pseudo-documentary type programs that look into health.
reapplying – there’s recommendations to apply every 2 hours but it’s really for chemical sunscreens as far as i can tell since they’re “used up” as opposed to sitting on your skin and reflecting the uv light which is the case with physical sunscreens. obviously if you wipe it off or sweat you reapply. I also read somewhere that it’s effective to apply the sunscreen and then reapply 20/30 minutes later but i don’t remember if it was general or it was specifically regarding chemical sunscreens.
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So with my criteria of
1) being effective & safe (for effectiveness i used the FDA standard & for safety I used EWG and Cosdna on the ingredients – Cosmetics ingredient analysis. ). I am looking for BROAD SPECTRUM SPF 30 at least. like I said UVA is aging, UVB is burning.
2) not greasy/oily (especially that my hair does not stick to my face. ) – I prefer it looks like i don’t have sunscreen on my face & it doesn’t cause or exacerbate acne. I used a chemical sunscreen that was greasy one time and i got huge pimples from it. BE SURE the pimple etc is attributed to the sunscreen not anything else. for example if you apply sunscreen on a dirty face or with dirty hands you can’t blame the sunscreen.
3) does not smell or doesn’t smell strongly or badly. i prefer no smell. FOR SURE no damn synthetic fragrances. I also want to avoid “citrus” scents just because citrus essential oils usually cause photoxocitiy or photosensitivty (it depends on the EO and i have to do my research to really be certain). I like citrus scents but I’d rather avoid ingredients that are counterintuitive to what a sunscreen should be.
4) reasonable price
I found a few that seemed promising. I ordered stick and lotion/cream sunscreen.
So far i have the cream-like sunscreen from SUNTEGRity and I’m happy with it for meeting all my requirements except the price but you pay for quality right? before I orderd it I couldn’t find a picture of the back of the sunscreen tube so I was a little scared that it might have the FDA approval. from reading the site i was pretty sure it is fda approved since it’s first and foremost function is sunscreen. I decided to upload the picture of the back for anyone else who has the same doubts as me.
I ordered Suntegrity Unscented Body Sunscreen SPF 30 – 3 oz (Formerly Named Baby Sunscreen)
which is 89 ML (about 3 oz) for 24 dollars + shipping
suntegrity has one specifically for the face Suntegrity “5 In 1” Natural Moisturizing Face Sunscreen – Tinted , Broad Spectrum Spf 30 which is $45 and 50 ML
so as you can tell the face one is over 3 times in price.
0.27 ml / dollar vs 0.9 ml/dollar
I don’t want scented sunscreen anyway so it works in my favor. though the scent seems natural since i don’t see any alarming ingredients. As far as the scent is concerned it’s not scented so it smells like zinc faintly which means it smells like rock and dirt which I don’t mind. i absolutely HATE synthetic scents so I’ll take the clay smell gladly. additional math is 89 ml /5ml = 17.8 days if i use 5 ml for my face. i read stuff like 3/4 of teasppon or 1/4 of teasoon which is 5 mL * fraction as well as people don’t apply enough sunscreen and so they get half the SPF protection or a third of it etc. It’s pricey but still much cheaper than antiaging treatments that you go under from years of going outside with out any sunscreen probably?
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It seems kind of pricey but it fits my requirements. i ordered other sunscreens and i’ll have to see which is the “least” noticeable on my face when they come. it’s all about being stealthy with my skincare. I was thinking of using suntegrity on my face and another sunscreen on my neck to save money. i’ll have to see the other sunscreen to decide on my strategy. I never tried phsical sunscreen before suntegrity so at first it was rather opaque and not blending in easily so i was like “oh snap am i gonna look like casper” but it blended in shortly after. For physical sunscreens the best to put it on is to spread it as much as possible (dotting little blobs of sunscreen) before rubbing in. if you put a huge glop on one area and blend that area will turn white and then you have to try to spread it from that area to another area which isn’t as easily done as with a lotion. This product does require some time to blend in compared to like a face moisturizing lotion otherwise you will look white. what i mean is you need to a few minutes to rub it in fully compared to a face lotion where it takes 20 seconds. it’s not a significant amount of time but in certain situations those few minutes make or break it like early in the morning or you’re running late etc. EDIT: I received I another sunscreen and this one takes more effort to rub in and it’s less spreadable. It makes me appreciate suntegrity because it’s much easier to rub in. so my tip is squeeze out a inch or 3/4 of an inch and then dot yourself with it thourougly than rub it in in circular motions going from center of your face to the edges of yourface and to do it in front of a mirror in a well-lighted room or a lightsource nearby to ensure that it’s rubbed in WELL. I was reading an article about eyelids and sunscreen that you should put sunscreen on eyelids and how 90% or some high percentage of basal carcinoma are found on the eyelids. Like I mentioned before I’m not white nor that white and I don’t have a history of skin cancer in my family so i’m not too particularily freaked out by that. something about putting usnscreen on my eyelids seems strange and i’m scaed i’ll get the sunscreen in my eye (as natural or safe the sunscreen is… there’s sitll apossiblity it could irritate your eyes. your eyes are sensitive..). I love wearing sunlglasses because my eyes are just tired and sensitive so for the most part i’m wearing them. I’m still pondering on my policy for putting sunscreen on my eyelids.
removing sunscreen – so from watching japanese TV I’ve also heard a lot of 泡立て 洗顔 (google image or youtube it) so eventually i incorporated that into my face washing. this sunscreen is not waterproof as far as i can tell but it still requires some effort to remove it. i use warm/hot water to rinse for a minute and then i make my foam/tiny bubbles to wash my face and remove it (I think that’s just how it is for physical sunscreens). I use and recommend EPOCH It’s a great soap with the ingredients it contains and it foams up well! (I mention this because some soaps are good but they don’t foam up well. this soap is expensive but it’s quality! ) BTW I don’t buy foaming nets. I buy the poofy shower things (called a loofa?) and cut the knot that’s holding the loofa into a circular shape so it turns into one long mesh and then cut the mesh every 10 inches or so. (this girl’s DIY recommends tying a knot at the end which I followed. I later realized it’s not necessary. It’s easier to make bubbles if it’s a square as opposed to having a loop at one end. ALSO the knot traps water and will encourage bacterial/mold growth)so let’s say the poofy thing is 2 dollars and i made 8 foaming nets from it. that’s like 25 cents per foaming net. I’ve bought 1 japanese face net (the one with the blue/pnink thing) at those asian stores for 4 dollars and i notice no difference between the diy and the store bought one. I find that the pink/blue poofy things in the white net just get in the way. it’s all for design and I don’t find it helpful at making the foam and I’m sure the pink and blue thing will encourage bacterial and mold growth lol.
Perhaps I will follow up with another post with a review on other sunscreens that I’ve had a chance to try as well as how I’m using them to save my money and all that.
So I realized if I don’t update in the next 8 days or so
I lose my streak of updating x months in a row. I do not count stuff that is not worth counting. I don’t really care about keeping it up but I’ll post anyways.
so I’ve checked out some fansub review sites because I learn about translating from the examples that are given. it’s fascinating to see the different ways things can be translated, misunderstood, misconstrued etc. I’m a proponent of liberal translations as opposed to literal translation. but even then there are degrees of liberalness and I don’t support extreme liberal translations though it may depend on the the line, scene, show, etc.
The bloggers really know what they’re talking about with the translations. they’ll point out a translation that’s stilted or just doesn’t do the line justice and give their translation take on it. sometimes it’s a really good translation that I think I would never come up with.
I have no interest in the animes themselves though lol.
and here’s an old OLD OLD entry that i never posted just because I wasn’t satisfied with it.
It was so much fun watching it. Fun is not the right word. I just really like this singer and iwant to find out more about her especially via tv shows. She doesn’t go on tv all that much and not all her past appearances on tv/radio are up online with streaming or on clubbox UNFORTUNATELY. this one is definitely worth watching for the shiina ringo fans. if your japanese is not up to par you might get screwed with understanding her lol. I had trouble understanding her at parts. It’s not the japanese AT ALL. I know all the japanese that she used to express herself. I’ve come acrossed all those phrases and sayings and whatnot. I know al lthat stuff inside out. the problem i don’t feel like i’m understanding what she’s saying. it’s not incompetency on my japanese part, I just find her hard to understand. I feel the need to rewatch/rehear stuff she says. I know what it means and everything but I feel like I’m not understanding it. You know this kind of stuff happens in my native language english too with people that just speak in this way that is not easy to understand for me (like what the hell does days of FUTURE PAST mean for x-men. no i don’t want to watch the movie to find out) . Or at least I feel like I’m not getting the complete picture or i’m unsure of my interpretation of what she said. By all means i’m saying she’s a horrible speaker or she talks enigmatically or anything like that. maybe we’re just not on similar wavelenths lol. The performances were amazing and I still don’t undersatnd the lyrics fully lol. the thing with her lyrics is that even japanese don’t undersatnd and there’s definitely multiple ways to interpret her lyrics. Maybe that is her goal or maybe it’s not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHWmi9iC_SI
so I enjoyed watching the PV and was able to catch random parts of the lyrics since it is sorta enka-ish with uncommon japanese. then i proceeded to watch the live performance which was amazing and the first time I saw it I was like I don’t understand this song lol… then the second time I watched it I realized I was just overwhelemed with the all the furigana and hiragana that doesn’t match what she’s singing… you know how in japanese they read kanji or hiragana differently from what it’s usually read. some examples…hmmm.
Lots of interesting talk in the episode. I found it really interesting about the 9/11 thing because I didn’t know that was she was deeply affected by it and that a song was created because of 9/11… it’s news that was heard around the world so in that it’s not a big surprise. ever since she said oh because of 9/11 this songw was created I went to find out about songs MADE by japanese artists because of 9/11. there’s a bunch . I was surprised that the song by hito to yo something (the singer that speaks english, mandarin ? , and japanese) . tsudukemasu yoni was inspired by 9/11. I’ve heard it so many times on japanese tv, etc. It’s a famous song. I’ve heard them introduce the song but i never heard of the 9/11 thing. I want to look into more songs created from 9/11. by all means i mean it in the most positiv eway possible. I loved what shiina ringo said about her music and what she could do with it to be of help in anyway to 9/11 etc… spreading message of love or hope etc.. Music is wonderful like that. I loved the spiel she just spilled about 9/11, the difference her music can make, etc.
PARADE 2010 – another Japanese Movie.
<- funny scene!
http://youtu.be/VJg5Bc3JJuk the movie will definitely be more boring if you watch the trailer before watching the movie.. I saw the trailer a long time ago so I forgot and so I wasn’t extra bored! from what I remembered I thought it was gonna be an exciting thriller mystery movie with the setting of roommates who don’t really know each other that well and whodunnit blahblah. That’s sorta part of the movie but its not the main point and its not A triller except for the very end. I still find the message of the movie interesting and I can relate a lot
So last time I recommended CONFESSIONS because it’s a japanese movie that’s actually good. this one I would say is not. I waited mad long to watch this too lol. I was bored by this movie but I was intrigued by it too because there were interesting scenes and intersting informatoin divulged. here were also parts that made go wtf and I got NO EXPLANATION. there’s no way anyone can deduce the explanation from the movie. ithink that’s a huge problem. parts of this mvoie or actually a majority of it is ordinary daily living like “you watch people sitting in the living room chit chat about nothing” ordinary. that was boring and it must be even more boring for japanese people because i’m sure that situation is even more familiar to them. one oft he positive reviews liked the scenes I just described because it was really natural and fun to be watching it… but I don’t feel that way for the most part. I remember reading one of the yahoo movie reviews that said only people in their 20s can relate and get somethin out of it and anyone else will be really bored. I agree with that and that’s another weakpoint of this movie imo. people I ntheir 20s is MAD limiting…. and definitely not a sign of a good movie. somebody also was saying that maybe the source of the lack of quality acting was karina. the reasoning is that the other actors sorta had to level themselves to her level which held them back from giving a really good performance. I wish the acting was better not saying the acting was terrible. I don’t solely blame karina. I felt like none of the characters truly understood and acted the out the characters they were assigned. I got the impression they all did when I watched the trailer or the cast intereviews or the kaiken. that’s why I wanted to watch it and had expectations (this was a while ago though)… I get fooled by the interviews and kishakaikens lol… the MOVIE ALWAYS seems good when I watch those lol.. You can tell from the interviews and making and whatnot that they worked hard making it and seem like they konw what they’re doing but then it’s so disappointing when I see that the movie doesn’t really measure up to what I expect.. and another complaint: for the last scene with fujiwara I thought it was a little melodramatic/overacting. he wasn’t that bad in this movie becuase for the mots part he’s just talking like a normal person and I like deep voice he is AWFUL in kaiji. but by all means I think the #1 SOURCE OF THE MOVIE FAILING IS THE SCRIPT. when it comes it down it IT’S THE SCRIPT. some poeple get dissapointed with the movie because they heard it’s scary and then when they watch it they go THAT’S IT? IT’S A LITTLE scary but THAT’S IT? I sorta agree with that. I didn’t hear about that so I didn’t have those expectations but all in all the movie is just ordinary daily things and the ending is scary but don’t expect too much like some super twist or twists. the ending intrigued me alot and the whole message about living in a situation like that. I sorta wanted to read the book but i’m not that interested… maybe if it’s a dollar lol. cinematography is nothign special. it’s not POOR which is often the case with japanese anything lol. camera work that makes me go IT LOOKS CHEAP/fake, ZOOM IN, ZOOM IN lol. I did not apreciate the SEX SCENE. it’s not necessary and it’s awkward…. and I am a fan of that actor but i’m not a hardcore fan or anything. that whole scene leading up to it was unnatural and illogical to me lol. another complaint. because of the questions I had about the movie I googled it and di find something. it HAS SPOILERS obviously. http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1437994724 I agree with what this review points out. it has spoilers in it though lol so don’t read if you don’t… want to know spoikers http://info.movies.yahoo.co.jp/userreview/tyem/id334659/rid54/p1/s2/c4/ all in all I only recommend this movie to the people who are interested in watching it. if you’re not interested, then don’t watch it.
Also the part when the thunder struck the ground at the exact point that something said or realized was a little… cheesy? Like I would never expect that from a movie that came out in 2010… the rain was like whatever everybody does it, it fits, whatever, i’ll let it go but the thunder is just…. nooooooo. how do you do fake thunder anyway? lol… do you do the lighting and the sound effect later?
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