Death Note EP.35. Expecting the end soon, seriously.
おいしいごはんが食べられますように [2/12].
My physical book for ガラスのうさぎ arrived just today, so started from the first chapter; but I count that as reading. The tracks are usually pretty short, so accordingly, the reading chapters.
Regarding podcasts, I tried AntennaPod with Coten Radio just now. The topic and content is interesting (福祉 around the world, from past to present), but I don’t feel ready for podcasts yet.
I started watching Cowboy Bebop and quit like 7ish minutes into the first episode. One of my brothers love that series, and I had a feeling it would be one of those he liked but I didn’t. I sometimes feel so harsh on anime, there is a reason I don’t watch much of it.
So I went ahead and watched the next episode of Cardcaptor Sakura. I was a big fan of magic girls when I was younger, and Cardcaptor Sakura is okay. Pretty fluffy most of the time, but I can watch it with only Japanese subs and not get lost, unless there is a lot of Kero, since he talks too fast. >_>
But because it is so fluffy, it rarely manages to keep my interest for long, so I always wander away after watching an episode a day over a couple of days. The fact that I can watch only one episode and then feel done is kinda telling. When I find anime I like I tend to binge it.
Wanted something short and sweet today, so rewatched the snowman episode from Comprehensible Japanese. Once without looking, then another with looking, then another with the Japanese subtitles. Felt it a bit overkill to also do another one with English subtitles, so skipped that one.
Today I watched the first video in a series from Dir en Grey’s Drummer, Shinya, in which he walks around the Yamanote Line.
I didn’t understand everything, but the fact that a lot of it was subtitled in Japanese means I was able to follow along fairly well.
Doesn’t Kero also have a Kansai accent, or am I misremembering? I have a soft spot for CCS because it was the first anime I watched unsubbed and could actually understand all of an episode of, back in the day.
Haven’t updated in a bit and I missed another day… oops
February 11
Played Tales of Arise with JP audio for ~3h. Being able to listen is pretty useful when characters decide to start talking right at the start of the battle and you are too busy trying not to die to read the text.
February 12
Played BU$TAFELLOWS ~1h
February 13
Listened to Teppei for beginners #51 and #52, and played B$ about 15 min
Death Note EP.36-37 (end). The ending changed from what I expect, and I have heard it would be, but not to this extent. I remember manga’s and after that pretty well, but I don’t remember this one at all.
Last night I watched one episode of 仮面ライダー BLACK SUN
I ended up getting distracted on Sunday so didn’t watch any, but I’ll watch the final tonight and that’ll be all in time for my sub to run out tomorrow.
These past two episodes have picked up the pace, full of drama and plot dumping, setting everything up for the final episode. Though there’s still been a few moments of - wait, what, why?
Overall these past two episodes have been a lot better, it feels like they had an idea of how to begin and end this thing but just stumbled around in the middle until they realised that they only had a few episodes left to wrap it up.
Also finally realised where I’ve heard the main guy (Hidetoshi Nishijima) from before, he voices Kiro Honjo in The Wind Rises!
Rushing because I got stuff to do, only one episode of PiroPito Minecraft, #40. We go shopping several timea and end up with new items to experiment with. This guy straight up has a mad scientist’s lab in his basement.
Another episode of Heaven and Hell: Soul Exchange yesterday. Today, just a quickie booktuber video. I barely have time to post this, but I’m glad I at least listened to something, however short it was.
Not me spending Valentine’s Day with BTS First I watched the unboxing video - I was glad that she did both versions because I was super curious about the ridiculously expensive standard version (lmao at the way the standard edition bangs on the table like an absolute brick it does look pretty nice idk if it’s $275 nice though ). That girl is so cute, I love her xD I would definitely watch more of her videos!
After that, I watched the dance reaction video, which was also fun - I loved seeing them talking about their biases why was I so proud that I recognized the Japanese word for bias I don’t know a lot of words, but gosh darn it, I know that one But they seemed really like genuinely enthusiastic, I love that :3
I know what I’m going to look for next (although it might be too early, the album just released a day ago lol) - Key of SHINee dropped a repackage of his latest solo album and I’m still trying to decide which version to get, so I’m going to look for an unboxing video of that to help me decide I love Key, my retro vibe king His last album had a version that looked EXACTLY like one of those old plastic clamshell VHS cases, it was PERFECT and it was the best thing I’d ever seen and I am so interested to see what the repacks look like. If I can’t find an unboxing of the new one I’ll look for one of the old one lmao
Anyway…not that anyone asked about Key Definitely not sitting here vibing to Key’s music as I write this
…Me using k-pop stuff for my listening material is probably going to make me exponentially more annoying lmao, I’ll try not to ramble too much but no promises
Podcast discussion
I see~ Yeah that definitely seems way more convenient than trying to listen to all of them off a website Although, thinking back, that’s exactly what I was doing when I listened to Teppei lmao, I remember the episodes kept moving around on the list page (I assume because more episodes were getting added to the list) so I kept forgetting/losing which episode I was on Not that it would have mattered, but it mattered to me lmao
Lolol I might try out Podbean then, I feel like I definitely would want to be able to search for stuff. I like discovering new things and finding them “by chance,” idk, it feels more fun and exciting than a list somehow
What I’ve been watching and listening to: assorted visual kei stuff, fluff, and trash
Midorikawa Yuu & co. talk about banning fans from attending concerts from their perspective as band members. (17 min) This was really interesting because it’s such a sensitive topic. I wonder if any bands have ever dared to talk about this publicly before. When I was a regular at other bands’ shows, there were a few times when some high-profile fans who’d been going to every single concert and dominating the front row suddenly stopped, and there was some speculation on the anon boards that they’d been banned, but nobody who knew anything talked about it. So some of the things I observed in the past feel a little clearer now.
Shinya from Dir en grey does a walking tour of the live venue Shinkiba Studio Coast (24 min) just before it closes to be demolished. This might be the first time I’ve gotten to see all over one of these venues, and what they look like backstage.
Former Popteen model Yulano Ochi shows off some girly fashion looks supplied by tocco closet for the coming spring. (10:30 minutes) She has a running voiceover commentary about the looks, and I feel like fashion videos like this help me develop a better sense for the nuances between adjectives/descriptions in a way that dictionaries can’t.
Another fashion video by a different youtuber who went to the Kera shop in Shinjuku and spent 10万円, (20 min) featuring items from Moi meme Moitie, artherapie, and other gothic/原宿系 brands. She talks a little about the fashion style’s history and the origins of some of these brands. From this I learned that the reason why artherapie’s bags and accessories look so similar to Gaultier bags from the early 2000s is because the designer started as an assistant designer for Gaultier.
And a book review video recommending 5 BL novels from the last half of 2020. (14:30 min) I put a couple of the books on my booklive.jp watchlist but my existing pile of books is pretty large right now and I need to get through some of them.
おいしいごはんが食べられますように [4/12]. First time looking at the text, second listening only. I also relistened to 3. It was all in the car as a passenger and it’s tiring to properly read, anyway.
Last night I watched the final episode of 仮面ライダー BLACK SUN
へんしん！！
No matter how goofy it is, shouting へんしん and doing the transformation pose will forever be cool.
The usual intro song is a simple four-note motif that isn’t really anything special but it serves its purpose (though became very repetitive). However with this final episode they decide to go all out and use the opening from the late 80s 仮面ライダー BLACK all the while the main guy himself is riding around on his motorbike but now without greenscreen, and it is very cool, why didn’t they just use this opening song?
This was really building up but then after the halfway point they seemed to become conflicted if they wanted a solid ending or to leave it ambiguous for a potential sequel and it kinda fell flat because it felt a bit directionless.
Overall I enjoyed this wonderfully goofy mess of a show. I think with some polish and a bit more focussed storytelling this could have been a really awesome entry in the Kamen Rider universe but it’s just a bit too everywhere as is. The acting though was for the most part pretty good, but the lead girl (Kokoro Hirasawa) was the standout, she’s only 15 yet was acting in both Japanese and English.
And whoever decided to keep with using guys in masks and suits for the kaijin needs a special mention (and a hefty raise). As whacky as it was seeing whale-guy flap his flippers at the faces of his enemies with his emotionless plastic eyes staring into our souls it kept that charm of the pre-CGI-laden days. It somehow worked, which is something for the whole show, it somehow worked despite its flaws.
I need to find something else now for my Japanese learning journey.
Watched the first episode of The Journalist today. It looks like a good, complex story, but as I had thought the previous time I tried watching it, it’s rather hard as listening practice. There are times I can barely keep up with the subtitles, never mind focus on the audio. The vocabulary for political machinations and scandals isn’t the easiest either.
Today I watched the second video in the Shinya Channel series where he walks around the Yamanote line.
This may become a regular feature of my listening practise until I’ve watched them all because there is something really nice and chill about these videos!
)
First I watched the unboxing video - I was glad that she did both versions because I was super curious about the ridiculously expensive standard version (lmao at the way the standard edition bangs on the table like an absolute brick 
). That girl is so cute, I love her xD I would definitely watch more of her videos!
His last album had a version that looked EXACTLY like one of those old plastic clamshell VHS cases, it was PERFECT and it was the best thing I’d ever seen and I am so interested to see what the repacks look like. If I can’t find an unboxing of the new one I’ll look for one of the old one lmao
