I finished up my PG Strike Gundam set over the weekend with the final touches to the PG Skygrasper and Aile Striker.

Full picture gallery on Flickr.

This kit has always seemed a bit of a cash-in (well, all gunpla is, but this even more so!). As soon as the PG Strike came out sans any of the Striker weapon packs, you just knew there would be a booster kit coming. And although it looks pretty sleek, I can’t imagine many fans were that bothered about the Skygrasper fighter jet to be honest (it’s a bit of a useless vehicle that acts mainly as a transport system for the Striker packs or a way to get Tolle Koenig killed :p).

Nevertheless, it does add value to the kit. As well as the Aile Striker pack most people would be buying it for, you get the Skygrasper and a pretty solid display base on which to mount the Skygrasper or PG Strike Gundam.

And the kit looks beautiful. It’s also fairly quick to put together. Though Perfect Grade, there aren’t actually that many bits to snap the Skygrasper together. The Aile Striker has a few more fiddly parts but no more than any MG model would be.

There are some decent decals to add, including custom markings for Mwu, Cagalli or Tolle, depending on which SEED pilot you fancy. And you can largely get away with not painting, but if you can be bothered some careful licks of paint to the piping on the back boosters and the cockpit consoles  – not to mention the-almost-impossible-to-paint scale figures of the pilots — would give you complete detail too (I for one, couldn’t be arsed :p).

The real joy came in combining it with my 1/60 PG Strike Gundam, which I completed a few months ago. As to be expected from an accessory kit, everything fits together perfectly and the finished Aile Strike Gundam looks really impressive and quite sturdy with some good poseability based on the frame’s incredible articulation.

If there’s one criticism of this kit, it’s that the landing wheels for the Skygrasper have to be removed rather than folding into the fighter itself. Maybe that would have been too much to ask, but this is meant to be Perfect Grade, right?

Next up: A nice and simple one…. BB Senshi Destiny Gundam.

Perfume are a three-member Japanese technopop group from Hiroshima. I’d never really heard of them until their name cropped up in a few Jpop blogs I follow about a month or so before my recent Japan trip.

As it happened, my trip coincided with the release of their new album, Triangle, and, in my usual easily-persuaded-by-advertising way, I picked it up on my last day. And as it turns out, I love it.

Well, technically I don’t love all of it. Like a lot of my recent Jpop CD’s about half the tracks I’m ambivalent too (and a couple are a bit meh), but the tracks I do like I absolutely *adore* (and, unsurprisingly, they happen to be the previously released singles from the album).

Take for example, the first proper track, Love the World, which is just about as perky as you can get. It’s been bringing a smile to my face all summer.

My second favourite is the penultimate track, One Room Disco, which has a fantastic video:

I love the way this starts off with a slightly menacing techno riff, but quickly gets into a more upbeat rhythm. This *always* cheers me up.

Having played Triangle pretty much non-stop for the last month, I sought out Perfume’s back catalogue too. I can’t say I’m as enamoured with the rest of it as Triangle. I was surprised that some of it is really pure bubblegum pop — clearly before their producer moved them to a more techno sound — and a lot of it isn’t quite as catchy as I’d hoped. But there are some absolute gems, like Perfect Star, Perfect Style from their Complete Best album (this live video really showing off their para para aspect):

It’s a funny thing technopop. I can honestly say I hate most techno music, but when infused with this level of bubblegum pop, not to mention the harmonic vocals of A-chan, Nocchi and Kashiyuka, it’s irresistable. Not to mention, the beat is really good for totally losing yourself in. Sometimes, after a really long, stressful day, putting this on on the way home really unwinds me.

So Perfume, you have another fan and I chalk this to another of my happy, serendipitous fandom discoveries. ^^

While in Japan, I was lucky enough to catch the second Renewal of Evangelion movie at the Human Trust Cinema in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Evangelion Shin Gekijōban: Ha (Renewal of Evangelion: Ha or Evangelion 2.0: You can (not) advance as it is alternately known) is the next in GAINAX’s remakes/reimaginings/cash-in rip-off’s of their popular, controversial anime series.

Despite my misgivings about reanimating and redoing an otaku favourite, I was really impressed by the first film (Evangelion 1.0: You are (not) alone). Yes, the story was exactly the same as the first six or so episodes of the series, but it had been a long time since I’d rewatched the TV anime and the newly animated footage was stunning. To see everything rendered in new, 21st Century colours and CG was a treat for the eyes, and the story still holds — in some ways it was even better without the filler fluff that comes with a TV series.

Yet, while the story was essentially the same, it did hint at big changes to the original plot — Kaworu, for example, made a few taster appearances.

This is carried on in the second film, which while going through essentially the same hoops as the original anime, takes a different route in getting there.

(SPOILER ALERT: If you really don’t want to know, stop reading here)

Let’s do the otaku thing and run through some of the major changes:

• New character: Horikita Maki. Gets the opening scene, dusting off an unknown angel in an prototype for the Eva mass-production model. Fans may have recoiled in horror at the idea of a new character inserted into their beloved story, but Maki fits in well, albein in a deux ex machina kind of way. She’s not actually in it that much, to be fair. She just pops up in the opening, drops in on Tokyo-3 (and Shinji) in typical harem-anime style (rooftop, boy, parachute; you can imagine the scene) and then crops up for the final battle at the end. All we know about her is she’s a mysterious SEELE test pilot, with a surprising amount of maturity (at least combat-wise). No doubt we’ll find out more about her in the final two movies (which really will be all new plot).
• Asuka Langley Soryu is now Asuka Langley Shinikami. She’s now a Captain and she gets an awesome introduction, launching out of a plane to take out an angel in mid-flight with a spray of bullets and gymnastics. That’s my Asuka!
• It’s Asuka, not Touji who pilots Eva-03 in the ill-fated test. This gives an emotional plot point even more weight. Fans would have had the bad feeling as soon as they saw she was the one prepping for it. From the trailer for Evangelion 3.0 she seems to have survived (as Touji did) but I did genuinely think she might have been killed off, which goes to show how out of the familiar-plot comfort zone Eva 2.0 got me.
• Kaworu continues his teaser appearances, culminating in him donning a plug-suit and boarding his own Eva model to confront the berserker Eva 01 at the film’s cliffhanger climax.

So my verdict on the film? I loved it. It was an absolute gripping joy from start to finish. The animation continues to be spectacular. All the lush of Eva 1.0 is there and then some with the fight scenes particularly fabulous and some stunning cut-scenes of everyday life around Tokyo-3 (one in particular, set to a short piece of OST, Yamashita, is just beautiful).

A big shout out has to go to Sagisa Shirou’s soundtrack too. Again, he’s outdone himself. The pieces are a mix of both the familiar TV series themes, some remixes and some fantastic new tracks (Yamashita being the pick of them). There’s also some disturbing choices of, actually quite beautiful, ‘kids’ songs mixed over the violent scenes in the movie’s climax (very akin to End of Evangelion). But the icing on the cake for me was Shirou’s ressurrection of the Kare Kano BGM for much of this film. Those tracks of strings and pianos are emotionally poignant, full of angst, loneliness, romance and hope — essentially all themes of Eva. I’d forgotten how much I love the Kare Kano OSTs and to hear Shirou bringing them to a new audience brought joy to my heart.

On a side note, watching a major anime film in a proper Japanese cinema was a joy. The spectacular animation looked beautiful on the big screen and the surround sound was wonderful. Plus, the Human Trust cinema is a properly comfortable one.

I was excited about testing my Japanese ability with a native, non-subtitled movie and largely, it didn’t let me down. Of course I didn’t understand everything — as soon as anyone went into technological/philosophical/theological jargon I had no chance, and I’m sure I lost some major elements of the plot toward the end. But in a way Eva was the perfect film to go and see, as I knew the characters and the vague direction that the plot was headed in. Plus, teenage hi-jinks are fairly easy to get the gist of no matter what the language :p

It was also nice to watch it with a Japanese audience. It was surprisingly full, despite the fact that it was mid-afternoon on a weekday and the film had been on release for two weeks. Plus, shock, horror, not all were otaku! I hadn’t heard wrong, Eva really is fairly well known and does have a (fairly) a wider appeal, audience-wise.

I highly recommend Eva 2.0, particularly if it makes it over to a cinema near you (Eva 1.0 is getting a UK release soon I believe, and I hope it gets a short run in the cinemas). I can’t wait to see what Eva 3.0 and 4.0 bring, but wait I shall have to, with the next not due until next year (Plus, we non-Japanese otaku have to wait for the DVD release to even get the fansubs >_<).

Gundam and I, Odaiba, July 2009

So, I’ve written all about my Japan trip. But given the nature of this blog, it’s the geeky things you want to hear about right? ^^

Otaku highlights include the 1/1 scale Gundam in Odaiba, seeing Evangelion 2.0 in a Shibuya cinema (review to come in a later post) and discovering the ‘Akihabara of Osaka’ Den Den Town.

Gundam Odaiba

Impressive. Most impressive. I can’t tell you how excited I was about seeing an actual life-sized Gundam. To measure yourself up against such a structure is beyond any fan’s dream. Not only that but on the hour, it moves!

To an orchestral score the mighty RX-78 Gundam moves its head from side to side and up and down as smoke bellows from its chest. If the cockpit had opened I might have wet myself ^^;

We were lucky in that the Tokyo rain (unforgiving for three days) let up with clear sunshine for the hour we visited Odaiba. Which is just as well, as the setting, overlooking Tokyo Bay with the skyscrapers in the background, is incredibly fitting.

The Gundam is free to visit. Take the Yurikomome line from Shimbashi to Odaiba and get off at the Daiba stop (just after the shopping centre). It’s well sign-posted and you can usually follow the crowds to the park where you’ll eventually see the Gundam poking over the trees. There’s a small merchandise store right next to the entrance and plenty of food stores around the outskirts. You can also queue up to get up close and personal with the Gundam’s feet.

A real symbol of Japan, I can’t believe they are going to take this down (but if so get there before the end of August and see it for yourself!).

A full set of pictures from Odaiba on Flickr.

Den Den Town

Den Den Town I can highly recommend for anyone torn between the sightseeing draws of Kansai and the otaku shopping draws of Akiba and Nakano in Tokyo.

Osaka doesnt have a lot of sights, but it is a good base for Kyoto, Nara, Himeji and others, and it is a great city for generally hanging out and shopping. And in Den Den Town it has pretty much everything you’d get in Akiba, only more concentrated in a smaller area. Photos available here.

All the major anime chains are here (Animate, Gamers, K-books etc.) with plenty of second hand stores,  a massive dedicated Osaka Gundam store and a decent official Cospa store for merchandise. There’s even a couple of branches of Volks for plamo fans. Of course, there aren’t quite as many small shops as Akiba, but after a while everyone gets tired of looking at gashopon ^^;

Den Den Town is very conveniently located in the centre of Osaka (get off at Nipponbashi on the subway) and easy to navigate, with two main streets serving up all you’d want and possibly some rarities you wouldn’t find in Tokyo.

Akihabara

I went to Akiba as well of course, but on a prime-time Sunday this time. Some pics available here.

It was indeed rammed with sweaty otaku (male and female) but I was disappointed by the lack of otaku hijinks. No major parades or demonstrations and only a handful of cosplayers and itasha.

On the plus side I did get to see native otaku in their natural habitat and even caught some kind of launch event for a new game in Melon books (a dating sim no doubt. There was a guy playing a violin, which gave me shades of Ef).

I never tire of going from shop to shop hearing all the anisong music I love, and seeing rooms full of familiar characters from all the series I love (this summer K-ON! was most definitely the word, with everything from K-ON! tea to K-ON! bread in a can on sale).

Anyway, on to the loot.

Haul

For one reason or another, my haul from this trip was relatively small compared to last time. I still spent a lot more than expected, but I guess lots more went on clothes, experiences and (particularly) food rather than stuff. A sign of growing up? Still, I did manage to have two full bags to lug to the airport ^^;

Of the stuff I did buy, I was pleased to find a Honey and Clover poster in Den Den Town (Honey and Clover merchandise is so rare).

There was a vintage cinema poster store in Den Den Town and I would have loved to have bought the old Totoro or Whisper of the Heart posters I saw but I wasn’t sure if they would survive. Mental note for next time: pick up a postal tube >_<

Other than that, I got my MG Exia. It came out a few days before I left Japan, but I was too slow to get the Ignition Mode. Still, I was lucky to get this one as it was the last one in Akiba and at least it saved me several thousand yen. I also picked up a couple of display bases, including a special Celestial Being one for the Exia.

I also found my Miyuki Lucky Star Figma figure for what I thought was the cheapest price, only to find it again later in, of all places, Animate, for even cheaper >_<

I didn’t get as much music as I expected but I did pick up the new Stereopony and Perfume albums and found my two favourite Brilliant Green albums (The Winter Album and Los Angeles) going cheap second hand.

In terms of books, I got the second Haruhi light novel for a bargain 200 yen second hand to aid my Nihongo reading practice. And along those lines, I also found a couple of good bilingual books (with CDs) teaching you to read contemporary Japanese short stories and essays by well-known writers like Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto.

In games, I treated myself to Taiko no Tatsujin for the Wii (brilliant. Almost as good as the arcade). Elsewhere, my only plushie was a dango from Clannad.

There was also the usual copies of Hobby Japan and Newtype, the latter coming with a particularly nice gashopon of new Evangelion character Makami Mari.

And, ahem, I also got a couple of life-sized futon covers of Yoko and Nia from Gurren Lagaan.

I couldn’t bring myself to buy an actual dakimakura, the official ones of which cost an astounding 9,960 yen (that’s £70! For a pillow case!). Was thinking about an oppai mouse pad as well, but to be honest, none of them really appealed (not particularly interested in the oppai of Ranka Lee) and 4,700 yen is a bit steep for a mouse mat.

And surprisingly (Mari aside) no gashopons bought this time, which believe me was a tough ask….

As mentioned a few weeks ago I was soon to take my third trip to Japan. Well those two weeks came and went in a flash, and boy what a time I had.

It was fantastic and probably the best holiday I’ve ever had. Not only did I do almost every single thing I would ever have wanted to do on a trip to Japan (which is as exhausting as it sounds), but I got to share it with my friends who share my Japanophilia.

For me that’s what really made this trip special. I went with friends with whom I had began Japanese lessons all those years ago, as well as  friends met through various London conversation clubs. On top of that there was the happy coincidence of several others having either just moved out to Japan or travelling at the same time. And we had many old friends and sensei to visit, with plenty of new friends made too.

You can see all the photos from the trip over on Flickr.

We stuck our plan pretty well. We had a day in Tokyo to lie-in and get over the jetlag (though to be perfectly honest I couldn’t sleep at all and my jetlag persisted for pretty much the whole trip. Still, three hours sleep a night adds to that dreamy experience I have whenever I go to Japan ^^).

The majority of the holiday was spent in Kansai. Osaka was a great place to base ourselves. It’s not exactly packed with must-sees in sight-seeing terms, but it is a nice city to just hang-out in, with plenty of restaurants, shops and everyday activities to keep you occupied — great if you’re meeting up with old friends. I was happy to just see more of spots like Dotombori and take in more of the famed Osakan atmosphere and Osaka-ben (なんでよね？）. And do all the Japanese ‘cultural’ activities I like most: karaoke, izakaya, game arcades and lots and lots of food including Osaka’s famed takoyaki and okonomiyaki ^^

Kyoto Gion Matsuri

From Osaka it was just 30 minutes to Kyoto for the Gion Matsuri. The actual parade was a little disappointing. While there were a lot of floats, many of them looked the same and the whole two hour event had the same slightly dreary shrine music playing throughout. I guess I was expecting more of a carnival thing with big extravagant floats and lots of noise. More enjoyable was the general festival atmosphere around Kyoto, a city I always like revisiting, if only for nostalgia. We had a nice walk around the temples and backstreets of Gion, despite a rather sudden downpour of rain.

We then travelled to Shikoku for a few days. We took an enjoyable coach trip from Osaka, via Kobe and the Asahi-Kaikyo Bridge (one of the longest in the world). Though we didn’t spend long in Shikoku, it was enough of a taster to peer out the windows and see bits of the rural towns before arriving several hours later in sleepy Imabari, where our ryokan was based.

Imabari-jo

Imabari was a nice, if slightly saddening town. A harbour town we were told it was apparently quite bustling until recently when the government changed shipping laws, preventing ships over a certain side from coming inland enough to dock at Imabari. Thus a busy town became a ghost town as many people moved away to find work. To walk along Imabari’s shopping arcades, with half the shops closed and the others with few (if any) customers, is a slightly depressing experience. It’s a charming town though, with a nice (though not historical) castle, some good izakaya and fond memories for me.

Our main purpose for going to Shikoku was a daytrip to Matsuyama, the capital of the island and home to a famous castle and Japan’s oldest bathhouse, Dogo Onsen.

Dogo Onsen

The castle didn’t disappoint, particularly with its high vantage point offering spectacular views of the city (although the hike up on a hot summer day almost finished us off). The onsen was similarly spectacular in terms of its architecture, right out of Miyazaki’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi. The actual onsen itself though was a little disappointing, a typical bath no different from the many ofuro I’d experienced previously, though the water was obviously better :p. I guess what I really wanted was more of an ‘onsen resort’ experience with an outdoor bath and scenery, and for that I’ll have to go somewhere like Hakone next time.

We took the train and Shinkansen back to Kansai via Okayama and the Seto-Chūō Bridge, with some gorgeous views of Shikoku and the surrounding islands on a sunny day. After an overnight back in Osaka, it was back to Tokyo to meet up with more friends, hang out in Shibuya and do the otaku thing (more on that in a separate post).

We, surprisingly, even woke up early to visit the Tsukiji fish market, consistently rated one of the best things to see in Japan. It was indeed grand, although completely mad. You take your life into your own hands going to that place, with people rushing around and small gas-powered karts zooming back and forth through impossible gaps. And all that while you’re not exactly awake at 6am. Nevertheless, the noise, colour and smell of the place is incredible, and nothing beats a fresh sashimi breakfast at 8 in the morning ^^.

Sashimi breakfast

That same day (somewhat ambitiously) was meant to be the big finish for us at the Sumidagawa Hanabi, one of the most famous summer fireworks displays in Japan. We did make it, and the fireworks themselves were an incredible two hour spectacular, but I can’t say I enjoyed the experience a whole lot.

This was mainly due to the excessive crowds on what was already a hot day. I’d also somewhat overambitiously planned to meet 15 other people for the event, a number that kept growing with various friends of friends, and made worse when (as I should have expected) no-one managed to turn up on time. It is not fun rushing back and forth trying to coordinate a big group of people, in an area already rammed.

While the fireworks itself were spectacular, I would heartily advise going in a very small group and (if you can handle the sun) even going 5-6 hours beforehand to reserve a spot. Many people put down plastic mats and even tables marked with their names the night before — some in streets miles away from the riverbank — and it seems people in Japan respect that and don’t steal your spot.

Sumidagawa Hanabi

Tensions aside (and those largely due to my own over-ambitious planning), it was a wonderful wonderful trip. For the first time I arrived in Japan feeling comfortable.

Despite my constant jetlag, the country didn’t feel as overwhelming as it had on my previous two trips. I guess it was familiarity, with the routes, signs, customs, everything. And after almost five years studying Nihongo, I finally felt confident enough to ask directions, questions, and understand (most of) what people were saying back to me.

Yet Japan still feels like a dream to me. Perhaps it’s the constant jetlag, or the time-difference, or the complete difference in culture compared to the UK (even when it’s all familiar). It still feels like wandering through my imagination, through that place in my head that I retreat to in my free-time, full of  all the things I love.

I really couldn’t have wished for more, and, because I shared it with so many friends this time,  I doubt I’ll ever get such an experience again. To share what you love with people you love, who it  just as much as you do, that’s all anyone can ask for, on a holiday or otherwise.

As previously noted on this blog, I liked, but wasn’t blown away by K-ON! as a series and was somewhat disappointed by the music scenes. That’s not to say I didn’t like some of the songs though.

A few weeks ago a K-ON! mini album was released. K-ON! Gekichuka Shu Album: Ho-Kago Tea Time is a really short compilation of the four insert songs from the series: Curry Nochi Rice, Watashi no Hochi Kisu, Fude Pen ~Ball Pen~ and Fuwa Fuwa Time (the latter having been released as a single already. And yes, the song titles are slightly embarrassing ^^;)

I have to say, since I got this I haven’t been able to stop listening to it. I still find Fuwa Fuwa Time catchy, but not incredible, and Curry Nochi Rice isn’t really that good a song. But Watashi no Hochi Kisu and Fude Pen are out of this world.

Hochi Kisu in particular gives me goosebumps every time I hear the opening riff, particularly on the live version. I guess it reminds me of that dreamy moment in the series when Azusa walks in to the hall and hears the band playing for the first time (see video below). It’s just got a wonderful high-school nostalgia feel about it and is incredibly mushy, particularly with Yui’s (Toyosaki Aki)  moe vocals.

Fude Pen ~Ball Pen~

So while I am still taken aback at K-ON!’s popularity amongst the otaku community (the amount of merchandise I saw in Japan was eye-popping) I’m not completely immune to K-ON!’s charms ^^

Kyoto Gion Matsuri

I’ve fallen rather behind on my posts the last few weeks (got a stack of Japanese films I’ve seen to write about, not to mention the end of the Spring anime season, several volumes of manga and a few new albums and singles CDs). This is largely because of — what else — real life getting in the way, particularly conferences and events for work. However, I’ve also been planning and preparing for my upcoming trip to the mother country. That’s right, ayasawada’s going to Japan 三回！

In case I didn’t say that correctly, this will be my third time visiting Japan, following a couple of weeks in 2007 and my month long stay back in 2003. It’s really not enough for someone as obsessed with Japanese stuff as me, but travel is expensive.

Anyway, the planned trip is an ambitious one. We’ll be flying into Tokyo and after a day to beat the jetlag, it’s off to Kansai for the main part of our trip. Basing ourselves in Osaka (central and where I’ve only ever spent a day and a half), we’ll be taking in the famed Kyoto Gion Matsuri before a whole weekend hanging out with friends in Osaka. Drunkenness and karaoke will out, no doubt, not to mention lots of food and hopefully live music in Osaka-jo koen (if they still do it). Am also looking forward to revisiting some of the places I enjoyed on my brief visit last time, like Dotombori and the amazing Osaka aquarium, as well as new sights like the ‘Akiba of Osaka’, Den Den Town.

After the public holiday (Children’s Day), it’ll be off to Shikoku for three days for the ‘cultural’ part of our trip. No idea what to expect, or how much we can realistically see in such a short time. But I figure it’s somewhere we’re unlikely to visit on a normal route. Our aim is to get over to Matsuyama to see its old temples and enjoy the famed onsen (as well as eat plenty of udon).

We’ll be bombing it back to Tokyo after that, in time to meet Kanto friends for the famed Tokyo Sumidagawa Hanabi. I hear this is an AWESOME display of pyrotechnics lasting well over an hour (so not your typical UK 10 minute affair). I also hear it gets hideously crowded (and in the stifling Japan summer heat no less). Nevertheless, I am looking forward to sampling the atmosphere of a Japanese summer festival at last, and hope there are traditional stalls selling masks, soba, takoyaki and games where you can win goldfish or other useless merchandise. Yes, it will be just like in an anime… it will…

There are four of us going (almost all friends from my old Japanese school) and we’ve got a ton of friends out there to visit; a combination of ex-sensei, conversation club friends, ex-classmates now ex-pats, and London friends who just happen to be traveling at the same time!

We’re flying standby thanks to a friend who works for Air France. This means packing light so we don’t have any check in luggage. I will, however, be packing a bag within my bag for the inevitable loot I will be carrying back.

I’ve cleared my Sunday for the standard a day of impulse buying in Akihabara (got my shopping map ready). It’ll be a bit mad, as I hear Sundays are the otaku’s shopping day of choice. I hope to see plenty of cosplay and crazy parades, as well as the new additions to the Voltz gallery of Gunpla. Must keep my spending down too, so restricting myself to a MG Exia Gundam and possibly some Figma figures (and maybe a handful of gashopon’s… oh, this is a slippery slope…). That is, if I haven’t already spent my savings on Jpop CDs and funny T-shirts….

Other things I’m looking forward to immensely are seeing the 1/1 scale Gundam in Odaiba (possibly the highlight of the trip!) and hopefully seeing Evangelion 2.0 in an Osaka cinema somewhere (sans subtitles, so a real test of my nihongo).

All in all it’s going to be a really jam-packed trip from which I will probably need another holiday from afterwards. But I don’t get to visit Japan every year, and particularly not with friends. Any travel tips much appreciated.

After School Teatime: Mio, Ritsu, Yui, Mugi

A fun and enjoyable, if slightly disappointing, entry to the KyoAni canon. K-ON! had a concept oozing potential: four high-school girls join the ‘light music club’, forming a band that makes music, friendship, and good clean fun.

This sort of moe slice-of-life show normally screams off-beat hit for me (I am, after all a sucker for stuff like Azumanga Daioh, Manabi Straight and Ichigo Mashimaro), and with the hallowed KyoAni at the helm I was totally expecting another Lucky Star level of greatness with awesome music scenes on a par with Suzumiya Haruhi’s infamous Live Alive episode.

But I just didn’t feel that spark. I know this is controversial, given that a lot of other anime fans have gone nuts over K-ON! (I can feel the flames already), but does it really compare with the likes of Lucky Star and Haruhi on the KyoAni classics scale?

Don’t get me wrong, the characters were perfectly amicable: Mio is a tsundere fan’s dream, Yui the delightfully ditzy heroine (and a lead guitarist named Yui! With a sister named Ui!), Mugi just plain charming. And the animation, particularly the attention to detail on the musical instruments, was fabulous.

So what was missing? The plotlines were as I’d expect for the ups and downs of high school life. Nothing necessarily wrong with that — I do watch the same sorts of shows over and over again after all. Yet the pacing of the whole series did feel a little flat at times, and while I enjoyed every episode, I had few laugh-out-loud moments and only episode 5 (with Sawa-chan’s appearance) had me really beaming.

I guess what I was really anticipating was more grandstanding for the big musical climaxes. For a show all about a musical group, I really was expecting all out anisong awesomeness. But while the score was catchy and the group’s tunes decent, the music wasn’t totally amazing on the scale of, say, Haruhi’s ‘God Knows…’ or ‘Lost My Music’, or the Black Stones/Trapnest stuff in Nana. The big exceptions were the OP and ED themes — ‘Cagayake Girls’ was great and ‘Don’t say Lazy‘ downright phenomenal. In fact, given how outstanding the ED is, I was really expecting the final episode to build up to a ‘Don’t say Lazy’ live finish. Yet they opted for another airing of ‘Fuwa Fuwa Time’, which while okay, just doesn’t make me want to go wild, you know?

This isn’t to say K-ON! isn’t a decent show. It’s a perfectly respectable entry to the moe high-school girl slice-of-life genre. I realise K-ON! is a very different show from Lucky Star, Haruhi, Kanon or any of the rest of the KyoAni back-catalogue. But given how well their respective animation teams do slice-of-life harem shows like Clannad and Kanon, and all out wacky comedies like Lucky Star, I really was expecting the ultimate dynamite of otaku moe shows. I guess KyoAni’s set the bar really high and it can’t but feel a little anticlimactic when they don’t quite hit the same standards.

Some kits sit around for ages before you actually get around to making them. I got this one about three years ago, when my sister went on a trip to Japan. I’d actually wanted it mainly for the free promo DVD that came bundled with it. She came back with a heavily discounted box — marked down because it was sans DVD. Let this be a lesson kids, be honest why you want something when you ask people to buy things for you.

Thankfully I like the Gundam itself too — who wouldn’t love a black version of Strike Gundam with added weaponry? The Strike Noir is the main mecha from the Gundam SEED: Stargazer OVA anime, a spin-off of Gundam SEED Destiny with little to do with the main show. That actually worked in its favour given the stinking pile of crap Destiny turned out to be. For a three episode series lasting a grand total of 45 minutes, it was pretty good and I loved the ‘upgrades’ of the original SEED Gundams.

This is the first 1/144 kit I’ve made in a while, and probably the last I’ll do, since I’ve vowed to invest only in the better quality MG and PG kits. To be fair, Bandai’s gotten pretty good with it’s HG 1/144 line these days. With HG, a 1/144 scale figure no longer looks as cheap and nasty as the no-grade versions. While a splash of painting helps, there is nowhere near as much as used to be required and a quick and dirty job using just the stickers would yield a decent looking model.

Gallery on Flickr

Of course, I painted and panel-lined mine (after all, I have to get use out of the bucket-load of Gundam markers I bought last time I went to Japan), but the whole build didn’t take too long. Total build time from box to finish was probably around 10 hours (though admittedly with a year’s gap between clipping the parts and actually building the thing!).

I’m impressed with the finished model, and especially the poseability. The new ball joints they’ve incorporated give the shoulders, legs and head much more flexibility than previous 1/144 scale kits. That’s good, because the abundance of weaponry on the Strike Noir — wing backpack, dual pistols, beam swords doubling up as foldaway cannons — allow for a lot of posing fun. It also comes with a matching display stand (though I’ve since pilfered it for my 1/144 Strike Freedom instead :p).

Overall, this was a fun, quick kit to build and good to do something quick for a change. Fine if you just want something satisfactory, but if it’s the Gundam and quality you’re bothered about, it’s worth pointing out that the Strike Noir is now available as a 1/100 MG version.

Next up: 1/60 PG Skygrasper + Aile Striker

John Woo returns to far east cinema with an ambitious take on a legendary Chinese tale. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a literary epic, at once China’s Shakespeare and Lord of the Rings, and a worthy source for the country’s most expensive movie to date.

The film(s) focuses on one of the most famous stories in the work, the Battle of the Red Cliff, when two of the kingdoms united to defend themselves from the Imperial Army. I’m not even going to try to summarise the plot. The word ‘epic’ also tends to mean convoluted mess of characters and subplots, so read the Wikipedia entry if you’d like to know the historical details. The significant factors are three outstanding leaders, two accomplished armies, a gang of legendary warriors and a war that may or may not have been started over a woman.

It’s so much that the film was released in two parts in Asia, but will be cut down for the West. That’s a good and a bad thing, in my humble opinion. On the one hand, it’ll help move things along. At times, Red Cliff does resemble a long, meandering period drama, and you could easily see this being a TV mini-series if Asia had a HBO equivalent. But while the condensed version will get you to the action quicker, it will lose the appreciation of politics, strategy and relationships that really make the story gripping.

Ashamedly for a Chinese person, I’m not exactly familiar with the Romance stories or the history of China. So I was fascinated by the tactical genius on display here (what can I say, I’m a sports fan too) and the mix of scientific knowledge, wisdom and brilliance that lent many of these great men an air of mysticism. Some aspects of the story have clearly been embellished for the screen (the idea of a princess undertaking a spy mission, is, quite frankly, ridiculous), but accepting that blend of history and fantasy that the likes of Lord of the Rings has brought us, it’s not really too much of a problem.

Of course, Lord of the Rings also brought us epic battles on a scale never before seen. Woo aims to repeat that, and possibly surpass it, on the Asian scene. The battles, particularly the finale, are drop dead spectacular and certainly rival anything Peter Jackson came up with. The fact that it’s elegantly choreographed martial arts may even push it ahead (and with John Woo’s trademark doves to boot).

The film(s) is beautifully crafted with an all-star cast (Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro to name just two) and high standards all round. It’s well-worth seeking out the two-part edition to appreciate this on all levels: action, drama and history. I certainly hope the single film edition will do well enough to warrant an ‘extended edition’ release in the West.