Huge Melons

I thought I'd make an ordinary dull blog-type post today.

I bought a huge watermelon this evening. It cost me £4.50 which is a lot but not the most I've spent on a fruit this season (that would be the durain fruit I bought for my mum as a present last month which cost about 4 times as much).

It's the smallest one they had in the shop! They had a huge crate full of them there.

Here's a photo of it:

I put Yuusha Raideen in God Bird form next to it, for perspective. As you know, Raideen is very very big. This watermelon is massive!

I think I'l spend about a week eating it...

weekend update

Ah, I did a lot of things this weekend...

* Played the Kakugo No Susume video game for PS1.

* Played Real Robots Final Attack for PS1.

* Started playing Psychic Force complete for PS2.

* Read the first 3 volumes of Full Moon wo Sagashite manga.

* Read the 4th volume of Yotsuba&! manga.

* Received Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw controller.

* Started playing SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters.

Details:

* Put in the Kakugo no Susume disc. Blindly went into battle. It's a primitive 3D fighting game. 10 minutes later, my brother pipes up "this must be the last battle; that's your rival". Ah yes. My brother. Before I noticed, the battle was won. SHORTEST GAME EVER. O_O

* Real Robots Final Attack is a bit like Gotcha Force or Virtua On, but featuring mecha from Xabungle, Dunbine, L-Gaim, Z Gundam, Gundam X, Dragonar, and some of the Banpresto Originals (R-1, R-2, R-3). Dunbine is ace. ^_^ The last boss is very hard. T_T I got motion sickness. (#_#)

* Psychic Force Complete doesn't contain the puzzle game, and it doesn't contain the animated intro for Psychic Force 2012 (with Kageyama Hironobu singing). Boooo! That's not complete at all!!

* Full Moon wo Sagashite, oh, it's a powerful story, and feels quite sad. It's a good read, though.

* Yotsuba&, oh, it's so simple, light-hearted and funny. A good contrast. ^_^

* My brother thinks that the Resident Evil 4 controller is not cute. [shrug]

* SNK vs Capcom Card Fighters was a bit hard to get into, but I'm getting used to it. It's quite fun, but the battles take a while. Even though this is the 2nd edition release of the game, there are still mistakes in it, for example in one description, the word "naïve" is written as "na?ve". It's quite fun playing and collecting cards, though. And I found it funny powering up Miles Edgeworth and getting him to defeat really tough fighters. But that's just me.

Taiko No Tatsujin DS

Yay! Taiko No Tatsujin DS Touch de Dokodon! is out! The first Taiko No Tatsujin game that UK gamers can happily import to play without having to get round region restrictions or trade restrictions (grr Sony, I'm the only person in the world who still wants to buy PSP games and yet you don't want me to...!). Comes with 2 cute mini drumstick stylus (styli? stylee? styluses?) too. ^_^

So... what does Taiko No Tatsujin DS have that the other Taiko No Tatsujin games don't?

* You can enter your name in katakana.

* there's the option to play with touch screen and with direction / shoulder buttons.

* There's a daily play dojo, presumably in the vein of other self-improvement DS titles

* You can dress up your taiko drum. It's so cute! (*^_^*)

* 4 player wireless multiplayer (apparently; I haven't tried it)

* There's an option to make the faces fly across the screen fast, and an option to make them fly super-fast!

* Mekadon no longer explodes!

Entering your name in katakana is not important, but is something I always wanted to do. I'm a foreigner, after all. ^_^;;

Being able to use the touch screen and control pad both at once means you can play it the way you want to, switching back and forth whenever you want. So, for example, you can play the main tune with the touch screen and then use the control pad / buttons for the rapid-hit score-boosting parts (the long yellow strips where you just get as many hits in as you can).

Some of the songs available:
Anime:
* Touch - 1st OP theme from "Touch" ^_^
* Together - Pocket Monster Diamond Pearl Opening Theme
* Gekiranger OP theme ^_^
* Smile go go - Yes! Precure 5 OP theme
* Doraemon no uta (1st OP - the Oosugi Kumiko song) ^_^
* Meitantei Conan Main Theme
* Anpanman no theme

Game Music:
* Super Mario Brothers <- this is lots of fun!
* GO MY WAY!! - THE IDOLM@STER
* Namcot Melody <- this made me feel happy & nostalgic T_T

Classical:
* Beethoven's 7th
* William Tell Overture
* um... the "Can Can", I forgot it's real name
* Flight Of The Bumblebee
* Classic Medley - contains Wagner's "Wedding March" & Grieg's "In The Hall Of The Mountain King".

I'm not going to go through and list the J-Pop, Namco Originals or the children's songs... I want to go back to playing... ^_^

(BTW you can get a copy from either YesAsia or Play-Asia, my copy comes from YesAsia because they were slightly cheaper)

Res 4 PS2 Chainsaw Controller £8.99

Random Bargain Of The Day:

Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller now in stock at £8.99

I don't know if it's any use as a controller, or it's just something you keep as an ornamental piece.

Truly Random Number Generator

The Quantum Random Bit Generator Service is now up and running, providing truly random numbers from... um... (reads description) observing photons at a very low level. [Isn't exactly sure about that]

Anyway. To sign up for the service, and get your high speed random numbers, all you have to do is fill in the registration form. However... the captcha on that page...! I'm used to typing in 4 numbers displayed on the page, this... oh... -_-;;

[suddenly wonders about the Lava Lamp Random Number Generator]

[thinks about how much she hates the word "captcha"]

SRWOG Gaiden announced!

Yay! Super Robot Wars Original Generations Gaiden is coming to PS2 sometime in 2007! It says so on these 2 scanned pages:

Disgaea 3

Disgaea 3's been announced! Yay!

For PS3! Boo!

Next year! Boooooo!

The details are in this pdf that's on the Nikkei website. (Yes, the Nikkei as in Japanese stock exchange...! I don't remember ever hearing about any new games this way before!)

I think I'd prefer the game to be on PSP. Not just because I don't own a PS3, but because I appreciated the portability and sleep mode of the PSP version...

Rose & Camellia

Rose & Camellia is the strangest game I've seen in a while... it's a flash game whereby anime-style women in old-European style gowns & dresses slap each other across the face (and dodge slaps!) according to movements the player makes with the mouse.



The game is available to play, there's a link at the top of the intro page to play. The first few times I tried it, it gave me a 503 error - perhaps it is too popular for the server. It loaded up eventually, though.

If you can't get it to play, you can, however, watch some of the gameplay videos on youtube.

Such a brutal fighting game... it gets hard to watch...!

SRWOG & GDF

Over this weekend, I intended to play a load of PS2 games with my brother, but ended up only playing two:

* Super Robot Wars Original Generations
* Global Defense Force

SRWOG is quite fun. ^_^ And Ryusei seems a good kind of guy. ^_^ ... what we did was... I got out my SRTOG (US GBA) cartridge and played that alongside the new Japanese PS2 version, so I would have a quick translation in front of me. However, the text in the PS2 version seems more in depth than on the GBA game, and I accidentally ended up on two different routes right from the first stage. You see, I'd spent ages trying to get the skill point on the first stage on the PS2 version, and couldn't be bothered on the GBA version, and I think that's why the stories were different and the game was a little harder on PS2. Diverging story, right from the first stage! O_O

It's also a bit awkward that the GBA menus are all laid out in one way, and the PS2 menus are in another way. That's because the amount of space available on the GBA screen is small, but the PS2 version has a luxurious amount in comparison... it's not meant to be used as a translation device for the PS2 game, either!

Global Defense Force is what I played at about 2am while I was asleep. It's pretty much identical to the first game, in format, that is, for the first few levels I played through... except... you now get a widely different choice of soldier to use. For the first two levels - set in London, whee! I accidentally helped destroy London! - I used the default soldier as in the first game. Then on the 3rd level, Tokyo, I decided to try out wave something plasma bullets... and I was like... "what is this? The Akihabara Defense Force???" because the character you get to control looks... *just like Halko Momoi in her kind of cosplay outfit* *kills things with lasers* *and can fly*. Ha! Brilliant!

She can't use vehicles, that's her limitation. But being able to fly...! She flies just like the people in Robot Alchemic Drive (R.A.D) (another Sandlot game), ah, it's so much fun!

And so I'm just blasting away, spinning round, playing "Momo-i VS the Giant Ants" and thinking... that would make a great concept album... or something... this is a good fun game, it least it was for me, but my brain was fast asleep...

I found a video of some gameplay, if you want a look. The picture's a bit dark and dull, and you don't get to see the hilarious image of giant ants flying off everywhere, but... you'll get the idea!

Oh yeah, I'm still playing Etrian Odyssey too. ^_^ I'm on the 4th Stratum!

Desktop Tower Defense

Ever had one of those weeks where you've suddenly lost all your friends to a video game? Everyone in my office seems to be obsessed with playing Desktop Tower Defense. So it's probably quite good. As well as being a complete time-sink. Sounds so good I've been putting off playing it.

Anison CDs

Upcoming...

Crystal King - Kurukuru Kurikuri
Endoh Masaaki Anison Greatest Hits

The Crystal King song is the theme for a Nintendo DS game called Kurikin Nano Island Story and Crystal King is "Kurikin" for short. ^_^

Already out:
JAM Project Best #5 - Big Bang - I somehow completely missed this. Oh well.
Anison 100 hey, that's a big compilation...

Aerobics / English Language educational videos

I found these strange videos on youtube this afternoon...

Here and Here.

They're very very random English phrases to learn. If you were going to teach people Japanese people English, would these be the phrases you would say were most useful?

This one makes it all make a bit more sense

So it's a little bit less random. But only a little bit.

Play Asia Sale!

Oh, I noticed a sale over at Play-Asia and got overexcited. Now I've spent a load of money (about £150?) on random stuff. But it's random stuff that's hard to come by!

Kimi ga Nozomu Eien [Limited Edition] [pre-owned] (Japan, NTSC J)
Kakugo no Susume [pre-owned] (Japan, NTSC J)
Real Robots Final Attack [pre-owned] (Japan, NTSC J)
Patlabor CD Box (Japan, Audio CD)
Dragon Ball Z BGM Collection CD Box (Japan, Audio CD)
Pop'n Music Animation Melody [pre-owned] (Japan, NTSC J)
Psychic Force Complete (Japan, NTSC J)
Pokemon Shudaika Song-shu Perfect Best (1997-2003) (Japan, Audio CD)

Yeah, I know... of all the anime you could ever watch, buying games of Kiminozo and Kakugo No Susume are, well, just asking for trouble! But that's what makes them interesting, to me!

And... just following the links now, most of those things are now either out of stock or increased price because they're not in stock anymore. That makes me feel that it was good to move fast...

Manga rescued from ADV

Well, I got the 4th volume of Yotsuba&! (Yotsuba to!) this week. ABOUT TIME, ADV!

And I was wondering about the other manga of theirs that they stated releasing and never finished... then I came across the news that Tokyopop have gotten a hold of the 2 titles I as most anxious to get more of. That's Aria and Boku to Kanojo no XXX (Your And My Secret).

All I need now is the rest of Duck Prince to be released in English...

(I should get round to reading the first volume of My Heavenly Hockey Club too... Morinaga Ai writes such funny manga!)

Global Defense Force

I placed an order with Amazon last October for the then-upcoming "Global Defense Force" game. It's originally a D3 Simple 2000 game called "Chikyuu Boueigun 2", the sequel to "Chikyuu Boueigun" which I played the UK release of under the name of "Monster Attack" for PS2.

The first game is not a brilliant game, but I liked it. It's simple, as it says. You run around 3rd person shooter and blow up giant ants. And the city. By accident. You get into vehicles and blow up more giant ants and some UFOs. And the city. By accident. You get bigger guns, blow up more giant ants and some UFOs. And the city. By accident. You can also blow up things collaboratively with a friend, if you like.

The 3rd game has come out for Xbox 360 in this country already.

Anyway.

On the 26th June Amazon finally decided to send me an email saying "we give up, we can't get this game, we cancelled your order". Meanwhile, play.com list it as available for despatch in 24 hours. So here's a link. ^_^

Horie Mitsuko CD - "Choshin Neiga Utakko Zenshu"

I got more advertising emails in my inbox while I was away last week, advertising a new Horie Mitsuko CD - "Choshin Neiga Utakko Zenshu". On 27th June, the day the CD was released.

The only videos with music I could find on youtube have this song which sounds like Mizuki Ichirou to me...

The Mizuki Ichirou CD was advertised to me sometime last year, but this is the first time I've heard the song. At the time I was thinking it was a live-show only, but now I'm not sure if it's a TV hero show too...

This live show video has an amusing bit at the end where a monster gets up on stage with a guitar and starts to sing "Mach Baron" really badly...

Iczer One

I was away for a week, and attended my brother's university graduation ceremony on Friday of last week. He's just as qualified as me, now, woo!

During last week, I also watched some anime and played some games...

Anime: Iczer One. This was more horrific than I'd expected but I enjoyed it. I couldn't stop halfway so I ended up watching this until 5am when I viewed it! It's got a great soundtrack by Watanabe Chuumei, and aside from being horror, it's also yuri-mecha, which is one of my favourite genres. That poor girl Nagisa, having so many terrible things happen to her and her family, all the while being staked by a crazy alien android who wants Nagisa to co-pilot a mecha because she's fallen in love with Nagisa. It's somehow quite funny if you look at it in a certain way.

It also looks very nice, very much the style of the time - the 1980s - styles you don't see too much of these days... doing a bit of research after watching the show and the interview extras, we found out that the director (Hirano Toshihiro) and animation director (Kakinouchi Narumi) are now married. In the DVD extras the director says the next thing he's like to work on would be a love story. (With monsters?) And so they next collaborated on Vampire Princess Miyu, which fits the bill perfectly. And is also a much more evolved series. Interesting to see what steps they took in leading to that series, though...

BTW much of the rest of the English-language internet will tell you that Watanabe Chuumei is called Watanabe Michiaki. He's definitely not! We've heard his name spoken in interviews! That's not the way you're supposed to read the kanji in his name...

(And he's definitely not the manga author of Violinist of Hameln; that's someone else who's actually called Watanabe Michiaki, with different kanji).

Watanabe Chuumei is definitely one of my all-time favourite anime soundtrack composers. Especially now I've been listening to a lot of his work recently on Kushida Akira albums... the various Super Sentai themes and Uchuu Keiji songs... I got this DVD mostly to see him in interview 20 years ago. He was really old 20 years ago! He's ancient now! ^_^;; (and he always looks so serious...)