I was bored yesterday and wrote a little summary of my thoughts for the future. This was partially inspired by the upcoming Singapore General Election taking place tomorrow and a certain online conservation I had with someone. After I finished writing it, I realized that it bears some similarities to the Dune timeline, so perhaps I was just agreeing with Frank Herbert.

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Read the rest of What I think the future will be (969 words)

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Post tags: capitalism, dystopia, future, marxism, sci-fi, wtf

If anime were a religion, magical girls would be one of its Five Pillars, along with shounen battle, love comedy, mecha and sports. Friendship, courage and cuteness are the fundamentals of the classic mahou shoujo. Implied yuri and teenage angst come optional in contemporary interpretations.

It’s a genre that is really easy to understand and that’s why I’ve never really been a huge fan of it. It’s like watching the latest Hollywood adaptation of yet another Marvel superhero — mildly entertaining with few surprises.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is different. I am not ready to declare it the best show this season after three episodes, but I will say that it definitely stands out.

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Post tags: akiyuki shinbo, first impression, mahou shoujo, puella magi madoka magica, shaft, wtf

日本鬼子 (ri ben gui zi) is a common disparaging term in China for Japanese people, dating back to the Sino-Japanese War(s). After the recent Diaoyu/Senkaku geo-political drama, the term has seen a resurgence in popularity in China, where the anti-Japanese movement comes back in fashion every so often.

Some creative Japanese folks noticed that 日本鬼子 can easily be parsed as a female Japanese name “Hinomoto Oniko” and the moé-fication project began.

A Japanese blog (that has since been made private) translated some responses obtained from Chinese netizens. Most of the reactions can be summarized as, “What is this I don’t even-” but one guy calmly said, “Please give her long straight black hair.”

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Post tags: china, hinomoto oniko, itai news, japan, moe, wtf

Uh, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t exactly associate Thailand with bishoujo games. Although Kotaku says that this game is ero, I don’t see anything that supports this claim. (And Kotaku is generally wrong about otaku-related stuff anyway, despite its namesake.) But I can’t say for sure either way since I can’t read Thai to save my life.

Promo and gameplay videos embedded after the break.

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© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2007. | Permalink | 25 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: angel's tale, studiogu, thailand, wtf, youtube

I just caught the first episode of Da Capo II and, as a long-time fan of the game and the franchise in general, I must say, “WTF!?” The whole episode is just one huge blasphemy.

But if you have never heard of the series before or if, heaven forbids, you are a Koko fan, then it’s actually a pretty decent first episode of a series that’s clearly trying its best to differentiate itself from its source material. But I am a fanboy and I find the overall lack of Nanaka to be highly disturbing.

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Read the rest of Da Capo II (612 words)

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Post tags: da capo, first episode, nanaka shirakawa, wtf

I was just scrolling through Moon Phase’s list of autumn anime and I came across Hanoka. The official site doesn’t have much information, but a single line in the promo video on the homepage caught my attention:

日本初！！
本格フラッシュテレビアニメーション
「HANOKA」

Translation:

Japan’s First!!
True Flash TV Animation
“HANOKA”

“Flash TV Animation”. I think the industry has just hit a new low. I can’t find more details anywhere on the site, but the animation in the promo video certainly looks like it was done in Flash. And it’s going to be aired on TV…

Which begs the question: Why the hell would anyone want to make an anime using Flash!? Anime are all made digitally anyway and I don’t see how using Flash can help lower the production cost. Are the creators aimming for the “new radical idea” angle? Or are they high on crack?

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2006. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: flash, hanoka, moon phase, news, wtf

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2006. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: flash, ievan polkka, lol, wtf

I watched Nana the movie finally. In fact I was writing quite a lengthy review on it but I stopped halfway due to my laziness and now it’s saved as an invisible private entry on this page until the time comes when I feel like finishing it. Mika Nakashima <3<3<3<3<3 The story is quite good although the ending is somewhat… short. I’m somewhat tempted to start collecting the manga but I’ll decide after I watch the upcoming anime series.

I also rewatched Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure and the first few episodes of Kimagure Orange Road… Nostalgia overflow~ Madoka Ayukawa <3<3<3<3<3

I think I’ll be preordering Da Capo II…

Anyway, I was in Funan DigitalLife Mall today and I noticed this peculiar sight…

Someone tell me what the hell is happening here.

Yes, you see that right. There’s a fricking Xbox 360 booth located inside an official Apple store. And the HD monitor isn’t even made by Apple. (It’s LG) I know that almost every store in Funan is promoting Xbox 360 but this is just too weird. Maybe the Apple staff thought that the white colour case matches the iPod display? And before you know it Microsoft will be bundling iPods with 360 premium packs…

Oh well, more blogging tomorrow… possibly. (At least I hope to finish that Nana review.)

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Post tags: apple, microsoft, nana, wtf, xbox 360

Common sense dictates that submerging your high-end PC in cooking oil is not a good idea. But, of course, engineering feats and science breakthroughs were made possible by those who dared to explore the realms of the non-conventional. Members of the Munich-based THG lab are only too happy to confirm this fact. And not only did we find that our AMD Athlon FX-55 and GeForce 6800 Ultra equipped system didn’t short out when we filled the sealed shut PC case with cooking oil – but the non-conductive properties of the liquid coupled created a totally cool and quiet high-end PC, devoid of the noise pollution of fans. The PC case – or should we say tank – also offered a new and novel way to display and show off your PC components.

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Post tags: geek, lol, Tech, wtf

「まい　ねいむ　いず　あな」

But more importantly, something has been bothering me since forever. What exactly is the joke with Ana’s last name? The manga didn’t explain it, so I assume that it must be something really obvious to a Japanese. I tried searching dictionaries and googling for “コッポラ”, but I can’t find any possible explanations. The Japanese Wikipedia entry isn’t very helpful either. In the anime, Miu-chan gives Ana the nickname “穴骨洞” (anakoppora) and the English Wikipedia entry took that to be the joke, but it can’t be because it’s not in the manga! Also, “穴骨洞” (formed out of the kanji for “hole”, “bones” and “cave”) is not a real word, so it’s not something that everyone would immediately associate with her name, which means that it makes no sense for the girls (excluding Miu) to react weirdly when they hear it.

Therefore, there must be some other reason why the name “Coppola” is humourous in Japanese. Something that is immediately obvious to any Japanese, such that the manga does not need to explicitly explain the joke. Someone suggested to me that maybe it sounds like koppura, which is short for cup ramen. That’s the most likely explanation I’ve heard so far, but then again, “Coppola” is written as koppora and not koppura.

My other theory is that it’s either a slant for swearing or a sexual reference. This would explain why the anime handled the joke quite differently from the manga (just look at what censorship did to Nobue). In that case, it’s still weird that WWWJDIC doesn’t have the word, since it contains quite a lot of informal entries.

This question is driving me nuts! Just what the hell is so funny about Ana’s last name!?

© DarkMirage for Ramblings of DarkMirage, 2005. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ichigo mashimaro, pun, wtf