riji | Entries tagged with ramblings

I just watched some performance clips from V6's 20th anniversary concert. I can't believe they sang Change the World. It was so nostalgic and I got emotional. It was the second V6 song I knew, but it was the one that brought back the most memories. My brothers and I used to watch Inuyasha when we were kids, and we always sang this song passionately whenever it came on. It was one of our favorite anime songs. I can't believe it was released like 15-16 years ago. Has it really been that long? Gee, time sure flies. But I still remember all the words to it! Yeah, I surprised myself too, since this is not what I listen to regularly. I listened it on youtube once some time last year after seeing them on Arashi ni Shiyagare, but that's it. I don't remember when I last listened to it before that. This is just like that Backstreet Boys performances on Miss USA few months ago. I didn't know they were gonna perform there. Suddenly they were on the stage singing my favorite songs, and I could sing along to all of them. Oh, and most of the audience could sing along too! Well, I guess it's a given. Their popularity was no joke back then. Anyway, it seems like my brain only works for these kind of things. There's no way I can remember important stuff from years ago.

Back to V6, my other favorite performance is Kimi ga Oomoidasu Boku wa Kimi wo Aishiteiru Ddarou Ka. They sang it a capella! I gotta watch it again with earphones later. It was so good. But I'm disappointed the person who uploaded this doesn't include In The Wind and Brand New World. In The Wind was the very first V6 song I knew, and the one that introduced me to them. And Brand New World is another song they sang for Inuyasha. (I swear Inuyasha had one of the best soundtracks. It introduced me to Do As Infinity, which later becomes one of my favorite bands) I need to see those two performances to complete the nostalgia trip. Please don't tell me they didn't sing those songs in this concert. I'm gonna be so bummed. I gotta look for the full concert later.

PS: This is random, but I've always thought that damn Boys over Flowers OST sounds kinda similar to Change the World. I mean the part where it goes "Almost paradiiiseeee...." and etc. I never know the rest of the songs because they usually just play that part in variety shows. But I think that's the chorus? The whole chorus (or whatever it is) always reminds me of Change the World. They're not really similar, but the feeling is kinda similar in a way. Still, I don't like that the soundtrack of a crappy drama always reminds me of one of my favorite childhood songs.

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: V6 - Change the World

Tags:

ramblings

During the opening talk of the latest VS Arashi (160804), the conversation changed from what they usually do on Thursdays to how big the tv in Ohno-kun's house is (thanks to Aiba-chan's random question). And when Riida finally revealed it, it got censored. *boo* I don't get why they censored it. I think it wasn't something that had to be censored. Well, I heard they did it so we wouldn't know how much he paid for it. But it doesn't make any sense to me. First, because the audience heard it. It's just stupid to think they're all gonna keep quiet about it. Just look at what everyone says on Twitter. Apparently somebody from the audience said it was 80 inch. (Yeah, I think that's right. If you look at Riida's mouth, you can kinda tell he said 80) And then everyone posted a picture of it (and also the one with the dimension) and the screenshot of the cost. So now we all know it's 80-inch tv and costs over 1 million yen. What's the point of censoring it then? And second, he's a celebrity. And a successful one. We know he's rich. The other members keep teasing him about his big house. And he uses Segway at home. So it's not surprising he also has a big tv. Besides, a celebrity buying expensive things isn't an uncommon thing. So they shouldn't make it a big deal. Third, it's just a tv. It's not like he bought a private island or something. Fourth, he said it himself. If he's okay with it, then it shouldn't matter, right?

Anyway, I love everyone's reaction to it. They all clapped like he just won a prestigious award, Sho-kun shook his hand, and Aiba-chan even bowed to him lol. And of course bratty Nino had to tease him by saying "I also watch VS Arashi in my 2-inch tv." Lol Nino please. This is how the staff should've reacted. They could just go "woah" and laughed about it like me. Instead, they took it too seriously. Or maybe it was the jimusho? Hmm...

Current Mood: tired

Tags:

ramblings

When I was teaching piano a few days ago, I heard someone playing a familiar piece in the room next to mine. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn't figure out what it was. It took me like 5-10 mins to finally figure it out. (I tried to remember it during the lesson lol) It was Joe Hisaishi's One Summer's Day from Spirited Away. Ahhh... I love that piece. I can't believe I couldn't recognize it right away. Maybe it's because I haven't listened to it in a very long time. So I listened to it on youtube when I got home. I have this habit of scrolling the comments when a youtube video only has audio. So I read the comments while I hummed along to the tunes, and I was so surprised to find out that the Spirited Away's animator died last May. I didn't know how I missed this news, but it was so sad. Spirited Away is one of my favorite animated movies. The animation is so beautiful, especially the one where Chihiro was going to the sixth station. It's A+, and forever my favorite. And apparently she was also the animator of some other Ghibli movies. Since all Ghibli movies have gorgeous animations, I believe this is such a huge loss, for them and also for us.

I actually haven't watched a lot of Ghibli movies. I know, it's a shame. I've only ever watched Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Ponyo. And I only got to watch Ponyo few years ago, when the kid I babysat was watching it. I blame my parents for not introducing me to more Ghibli movies. They only made me watch Disney movies. While Disney is also great, it's not the same as Ghibli. Ghibli has better stories and animations. I like that the stories revolve around a little girl and there's no romance involved. Meanwhile, Disney loves princess stories. It's always about a princess falling in love with a prince. Like Danny from The Mindy Project said, they wouldn't even have a story without their princes (except for maybe like 2-3 of them). I like Pixar movies tho. When I was in middle school, my older brother told me to just watch Pixar movies because their movies always have good storylines unlike the other Disney studios. And I think he's right.

I've been seeing a lot of Ghibli posts on tumblr. Almost all of them seem so sad and/or hit too close to home. So I intend to watch every one of them. I'm thinking of starting with Hayao Miyazaki's movies first. (Btw, I'm still not over his retirement) I have Howl's Moving Castle downloaded, but I haven't got a chance to watch it. I'm so surprised that KimuTaku is one of the voice actors. Because when I was reading the wikipedia pages of Ghibli movies, I didn't recognize any of the voice actors, except a very few of them. But I really didn't expect to see KimuTaku's name there. I guess it's because the image of him as a drama king is still so strong in my head lol. Anyway, I'm not sure when I'm gonna finish this watchlist. They have a total of 20-ish movies. So I still have a long long way to go.

Current Mood: sleepy

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ramblings

So a few weeks ago, I heard that VIU now has jdramas, but they only get the license for Fuji TV dramas. I checked the website, and I saw that they have 2 airing dramas; Suki na Hito ga Iru Koto and Eigyou Buchou Kira Natsuko. They also have other older dramas, albeit not a lot. Few days ago, I wrote about jdramas not being mainstream, even though I'd heard about this. And that's because I'm not sure if this is another start of mainstream jdramas. In the past, other legal streaming sites also held the license of jdramas, but it only lasted for a while. They don't license jdramas anymore now. So I'm kinda pessimistic this time.

It seems like only some kdrama fans (who also watch jdramas) know this. I think jdrama fans still use the fansub. I'm not sure tho, since I'm not watching those two dramas. VIU is faster, as expected. They already have ep 3 of Suki na Hito ga Iru Koto, while the fansub is still on ep 2. But like I said, the quality is different. Fansub is definitely worth the wait. Only get VIU subs when nobody picks up the drama, just because it's better than watching it raw.

Since VIU holds the license for a lot of Korean variety shows, I hope they will get Fuji TV variety shows too. So I don't have to watch VS Arashi raw, and wonder what they all laugh about. And maybe also get the license for other channel's dramas and variety shows. But especially the variety shows. Because the subs are rarer. While drama subbers tend to finish the subs until the end, variety show subbers don't sub it every week. And I need my weekly fix of subbed Arashi shows lol.

Current Mood: bored

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ramblings

I wish jdramas were more mainstream, so I don't have to go through all these troubles just to find the subs (and sometimes the raws too). Watching kdramas is so simple. There are 3 legal streaming sites that will sub almost every airing drama within 12 hours. So basically I just have to check viki (my favorite site) if it's available in my region, and just stream it there. If it's not available in my region, or if it's not licensed there, it will most likely be available from the other two sites. I just need to download the raw and rip the subs. The raws are so easy to find. Just google it and you can find hundreds of available downloads. And the raws are uploaded so fast, only a couple of hours after they aired in Korea. If you need a recap or review, you can just go to dramabeans. There's a big chance you'll find it there, or you can just google it, and there are usually a few other sites/blogs that have it. If you wanna reblog some gifs/edits, you can expect to find a lot of them, and also multiple versions of the same scene from different gif makers.

Meanwhile in jdrama universe.... The raws are only available from few sources, and the subs depend on fansubs. I hate that streaming is not a choice, so I have to download the raws and search for the subs. It won't be a problem if the raw is available on jdramacity and nyaa. But if it's not, I have to do detective search in google, twitter, and LJ. And I can't always find it. *sigh* And for the subs.... Since they're fansubs, I just can wait and pray that the ones I wanna watch will get picked up. Sadly, it's not always the case. And sometimes the subs aren't listed in the fansub map, so I have to do another detective work. And don't even talk about gifs or recaps/reviews. They only make jdrama gifs if the dramas are popular (usually romcoms), or if they're fans of somebody in those dramas (and only make gifsets featuring that somebody). Recaps/reviews are so rare. I can barely find them. I wish a jdrama fan who's fluent in both English and Japanese would make something like dramabeans for jdramas.

But I think there's a good thing that comes from not being mainstream. The subs for jdramas are better. Mainly because they're fansubs. I love the little translator's notes they give and how they make the translation as close as possible to the original meaning. Meanwhile, kdrama subbers always try too hard to Americanize the subs. So instead of putting translator's notes, they just use the words that English speakers would use, and therefore change the actual meaning. I hate that. That's why I never complain that jdrama subs (and viki subs too, since theirs are basically fansubs) take longer to finish. I prefer quality over speed. Because what's so great about releasing shitty subs within 12 hours?

Current Mood: blah

Tags:

ramblings

After 2-3 years of watching kdramas exclusively, I've started to get back to jdramas again. The main reason is because I'm getting tired of romcoms, or romance in general. Well, actually my depression is also one of the triggers, but that's not the point of this post. Kdramas are full of romance, and Koreans sure do loveeeee romance. Even in cop shows or any other mystery/thriller genres, the focus is pretty much on the romance between the leads, while the actual plot is usually meh. I'm actually not sure myself why I'm watching so many romcom kdramas when I don't even like romance story in general. Peer pressure, I guess? During my freshman year, literally all my friends were obsessed with kdramas. They were all talking about the "it" drama at the time, and I couldn't follow the conversation. Although I grew up watching Asian dramas, I never watched more than 2 airing dramas, and I never watched them all year long continuously. So at the time, I wasn't watching any Asian dramas, instead, I was watching tons of US shows. And since I was never that big of a fan of kdramas, I wasn't really sure of what they meant when they were talking about kdramas in general. But I didn't really care. I was already busy with school and hundreds of shows I was watching anyway. But in the summer, I didn't have a lot of classes. And all my shows were on hiatus. So I decided to watch some kdramas and jdramas. When fall quarter started, the only drama I was watching was a jdrama. But I couldn't talk to anyone about it, since nobody watched it. So since then, I started watching less and less jdramas. And after my graduation, somehow I only watched kdramas exclusively and started to watch less US shows. Long story short, I started to get bored with kdramas last year. It was always the same romcom trope, with a lot of unnecessary angst (and tears), and not enough (good) comedy. Moreover, 2015 was a dull year for kdramas. A lot of kdrama fans were struggling to find good dramas, especially during the first half of the year. So I slowly picked up more US shows, and eventually, jdramas too. It was a really good change. I needed it. US shows and jdramas have good thriller/mystery shows, which are more relevant to my interest. And they don't focus on the romance. If they do have romance, it's usually more like subtle romance. And I also love that the people who are watching it actually cares about the plot. While in kdramas, most people just talk about the ships. No one really cares about the plot. And I'm tired of seeing that.

I had an unintentional hiatus from kdramas during April and May. I don't know if it was because "Signal" raised the bar too high and nothing could top that, or I was just done and needed a little break. In any case, I dropped the two shows I was watching because the plot was really bad and not moving anywhere. And there was no other shows that interested me at the time (and I had decided to avoid romcoms for a while). Anyway, during my little hiatus, my love for jdramas and jvariety grew a lot bigger. I started to blog them daily, get obsessed over them, and search for updates very often. Basically the stuff I used to do with kdramas. Meanwhile, I skipped most of kdrama posts on my tumblr dash, and only checked for updates like once a week. But I'm not completely over kdramas. I don't think I'd be able to completely get away from them. Watching kdramas has kinda become a habit, so it's gonna feel weird if I stop watching them forever. I've been watching them again since June. I finally have some dramas that interest me. But I'm still avoiding romcoms as much as possible tho.