Thoughts on Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

Dare I compare Professor Layton with Detective Conan? Sure, they’re both mystery-solving series but they’re actually based on different approach. Detective Conan relies more on serious crime cases to satisfy audience’s thirst for mystery while Professor Layton’s emphasis is on puzzle games and fun little adventures. Even though I said that, I can’t help but be reminded of Detective Conan’s Full Score of Fear when I finally watched Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva.

The only reason for that is music. The Detective Conan’s 12th movie revolves around stage performances with pipe organs and the Professor Layton movie had something similar. Rest be assured, they are nothing similar story-wise.

Paradise Kiss: Yukari

You don’t know who you are….Is there a road already laid out for you? Is there someone planning it for you? Do you want to take that road?

Paradise Kiss tells a story of Hayasaka Yukari, an ordinary high school student and her adventures with a group of fashion design students from Yazawa Academy. It’s an exciting encounter, one that changed Yukari’s life forever.

The Place Promised In Our Early Days: Of Friendship & Love

The story takes place in a alternate postwar period, in 1996, where Japan is divided. Hokkaido is ruled by the “Union” while Honshu and other southern islands are under US authority. A tall tower was built on Hokkaido, which could even be seen from Tokyo. In the summer of 1996, three middle-school students make a promise that they’ll cross the border with a self-constructed plane and unravel the tower’s secret, but their project was abandoned after the girl, Sayuri Sawatari, became mysteriously ill and transferred to Tokyo. Years later on the brink of another war Hiroki Fujisawa finds out that Sayuri had been in coma since then, and he asks Takuya Shirakawa to help him finding a way to wake her up.

- IMDB

From that storyline above, it’s hard to imagine how beautiful The Place Promised in Our Early Days can be. I’m not referring to just the artwork and music but also the story. It’s pure friendship and love between three friends.

Bleach Movie 4: The Hell Chapter

I haven’t been following Bleach anime for a few months already, and it was only fairly recent that I’ve picked up the manga series again after dropping it months back. When it comes to Bleach, the things I like most are the character style and overall vibe of the series – the modern feel, the coolness of some of the major characters. The story not so much. Anyway, I decided to watch the movie a few weeks ago. That should be fun.

Instead of writing about the movie, I’ll list down the thoughts I’ve jotted down as I was watching it. A different way of telling what I think about the series! By the way, it’s spoiler-ish.

Musings on the Technology in Mardock Scramble

I watched Mardock Scramble: The First Compression a couple weeks ago and was amazed by some of the technology it has. Some of the technology used possibly already exists or at least in the process of becoming a reality. I no longer think anything is impossible after seeing how advanced technology has become these few years. Given that I’m very much interested in what’s going on in the IT world, I thought listing down the technology that caught my attention in Mardock Scramble would be fun. I was going to write about the movie itself but changed my mind. The story isn’t over yet so I keep that piece on hold.

One Piece 3D: Straw Hat Chase

I didn’t even know there’s a movie 11 -_-. Must be out of touch with One Piece movie news. I like One Piece: Strong World a lot. I think it’s one of the best One Piece movies out there, and after watching Straw Hat Chase, Strong World remains my favorite One Piece movie. >.<

The attractive point of Straw Hat Chase is 3D. Don’t worry, you don’t have to purchase those magic glasses to watch it. Think Reese Witherspoon’s Monsters vs Aliens and you’ll know what I mean. In my opinion, being 3D has its pros and cons. Yes, it is the attractive point of this movie but it’s probably the only reason I watch it. It made the action scenes a whole lot cooler and scenery came to live. But it also made casual movements of the characters look a bit weird and stiff. It’s not a complain. I’m just used to seeing them in 2D, that’s all. In other words, it’s a mixed bag. Their efforts are not unappreciated.

Warnings!!! Loads of screenshots so spoilers ahead!!!!

Expectations in Live Action Films

If you follow me on my Twitter, then you’d probably remember that I tweeted if I should watch the live action movie of Kimi ni Todoke. That was a few weeks back. Just recently, however, I finally managed to squeeze in the almost two hours movie into my schedule.

I can’t say that I enjoy the movie as much as I did with anime/manga. Actually, it felt odd. It’s not the first time I see a Japanese movie but it’s a first time for me to see an adaptation of a title of which its anime version I already saw. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t be comparing the movie and the anime at all. There will be differences due to many factors such as time constraint among others. Unfortunately for me, I kept referencing it with the anime. That made the experience a little less enjoyable.

The Girl Who Eats Paper?

As first year student Konoha Inoue is about to leave school campus, he presences a girl savor a page from the book she is reading. She introduces herself as second year Tōko Amano, the literature girl, and asks him to join the Literature Club so that he doesn’t expose her secret. After almost two years of being the sole two members of the club, a strange message arrives. A piece of paper with a drawing that resembles a sketch found on the corner of a poem written by famous Japanese writer Kenji Miyazawa. Further investigation leads them not only to Inoue’s past, but to the reason for why he has given up on writing novels for the rest of his life.

The “mysterious school comedy” centers on the unusual members of a high school literary club. Tōko Amano, a high school senior who calls herself the “literary girl” as the club president, is actually a supernatural creature (yōkai) that devours stories — she tears pages from books to munch on them. Her club subordinate is Konoha Inoue, a second-year high school boy who writes stories every day for Amano to eat. He once wrote an award-winning novel, but he wrote it under the penname Miu Inoue so readers thought the author was a mysterious 14-year-old bishōjo novelist. The stress from the novel’s fame and its movie and television drama plans turned Inoue in an introverted recluse

- AnimeNewsNetwork

Warnings – there may be spoilers ahead. I don’t think I have the talent to ramble about an anime without providing references to it.

Coincidental Twists in Summer Wars

When timid eleventh-grader and math genius Kenji Koiso is asked by older student and secret crush Natsuki to come with her to her family’s Nagano home for a summer job, he agrees without hesitation. Natsuki’s family, the Jinnouchi clan, dates back to the Muromachi era, and they’ve all come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of the spunky matriarch of the family, Sakae. That’s when Kenji discovers his “summer job” is to pretend to be Natsuki’s fiancé and dance with her at the birthday celebration. As Kenji attempts to keep up with Natsuki’s act around her family, he receives a strange math problem on his cell phone which, being a math genius, he can’t resist solving. As it turns out, the solution to the mysterious equation causes a hijacking of the social networking site through which most of the world’s social and business traffic flows.

- AnimeNewsNetwork

Warnings – there may be spoilers ahead. I don’t think I have the talent to ramble about an anime without providing references to it.

Makoto Time Travels

When 17-year-old Makoto Konno gains the ability to, quite literally, “leap” backwards through time, she immediately sets about improving her grades and preventing personal mishaps. However, she soon realises that changing the past isn’t as simple as it seems, and eventually, will have to rely on her new powers to shape the future of herself and her friends.

- AnimeNewsNetwork

Warnings – there may be spoilers ahead. I don’t think I have the talent to ramble about an anime without providing references to it.