Canaan after episode 01 – First Impressions

Boy, was I fooled. I thought Canaan was a he instead of a she. According to the first episode, she is actually, or supposedly, a girl. She has an androgynous appearance, so I looked at the chest as a deciding trait of gender. But depending on the angle and the shading, her chest may look like pecs, or small breasts. I made my assessment of Canaan’s sex based on the pictures her at the official website. Tell me, are those pecs or breasts?
Now about the first episode. I do not have much to say except that Canaan’s eyes remind me of Shiki’s eyes in both Tsukihime and Kara no Kyoukai. Instead of seeing lines of death, Canaan’s eyes once activated essentially gives her wallhack, with the added effect of highlighting enemies. Perhaps not nearly as powerful as both Shikis’ powers but certainly can be useful in more ways than one…

My Taylor 314ce

The Taylor 314ce. Dated 2007. Grand Auditorium Body with venetian cutaway. Internal pickup. Solid Sitka Spruce top with glossy finish. Solid sapele back and sides with satin finish. Undamaged surface, and immaculate joints and bindings. Strong and even tone across the spectrum. This guitar exudes a certain air of quality and of understated elegance. When I first saw the Taylor 314ce at my local music shop I was captured by its charms, but I was then a poor student. Years later, just yesterday, I have finally added the Taylor 314ce to my guitar collection.
Besides personal feelings, there are numerous good reasons that precipitated my decision to obtain a Taylor 314ce. Firstly, fingerstyle instrumentals are played in various unusual tunings. When I am learning a song at a specific tuning often times I may want to play other songs, but they are almost always in a different tuning. I have to tune my guitar to the appropriate tuning to satisfy my urge, then tune back to where I was to resume my study of a new piece. The tuning process is often an obstacle to my musical urges, and I have broken more than a few strings by tuning too roughly due to my impatient desire to play a song. Having two or more guitars dedicated to different tunings help reduce the frequency of the tuning process.
Secondly, my primary six string acoustic guitar, a Washburn dreadnaught, is a pawn shop bargain. As faithful and instrumental (pun intended) it may have been to my musical endeavors, it is simply not worth the money repairing or rejuvenating it. My Washburn is already fairly worn down and have seen better days. Eventually when it becomes a garage sale special, the Taylor 314ce will replace its role.
Thirdly, as my skills improve, so should my guitars. A professional guitarist at the peak of his or her career may have their musical creations limited if they play a cheap sub hundred dollar guitar that is made in China. Similarly, a beginning student of guitar may not be able to fully exploit nor appreciate a custom built or a top of the line brand name guitar. After seven active years of practicing fingerstyle guitar, I would like to think I have moved past the entry level into the experienced amateur category, but not quite at the professional level. The Taylor 314ce is representative of that middle region in the acoustic guitar hierarchy.
I have set myself an immediate goal: to play every song that I know of written for the six string acoustic on the Taylor 314ce.

Chrome Shelled Regios after episode 24 – Final Thoughts

Well, Layfon remains unresolved in his romantic options, which was no surprise since he is uninterested in pursuing romance at his current point in life.
Chrome Shelled Regios suffered from a mishmash of loosely connected plot lines. There were arcs after arcs, but the stories never felt like they contributed to something more grand or significant. The writing was not much better: cliché ridden and at times nonsensical. I also found Layfon to be boring. His character had a banal construct: he was a self-sacrificing, overpowered hero with a troubled past. The series did little to change him, with the only significant development occurring at the very last episode, something that could be symbolic of him finally accepting and moving on from his past. The music in the Chrome Shell Regios was more often than not distracting than complimenting. Aside from all these flaws, I did however, enjoy the fights, and of course, the pretty girls around Layfon. Chrome Shell Regios was very much a stock shounen-like show.

Up in 3D

Yesterday a friend and I inadvertently saw Pixar’s Up in 3D. The movie theatre we went to was screening Up only in 3D, and we did not realize it until the staff member handed us the glasses. Thankfully they were not those terrible chromadepth red and blue glasses that give me a headache within seconds of putting in them on. The 3D glasses used in Up look like sunglasses that are grossly out of style. If one looks through the lens at normal objects, they would appear the same, just slightly darker. Once the trailers and movie came on, images became 3D with both eyes looking through the glasses. Without the glasses the movie appears inherently myopic, like it is out of focus with everything slightly separated into two. With only one eye through either lens, the movie becomes clear and 2D like a regular movie. I would guess that the glasses polarized the light, either circularly or linearly, to create the 3D effect. Now the 3D effect is not perfect, as sometimes an area or object of numerous scenes would still appear out of focus even with the glasses on. At the end of the movie I did have a slight headache, but it is much better than the torture of the red and blue glasses.
The bulk of the movie itself follows the adventure of an old widower, a young boy, and various creatures that accompany them. There are a lot of fun, humor, action, and sentiment, all evenly paced and deftly written. But beyond the adventure lies a more substantial message that both kids and adults can appreciate, a message that Carl, the old protagonist, eventually discovers along with the audience. I really liked the music in Up. The instrumentals are so emotive and seem to tell a story on its own. Speaking of emotive, Up managed to move me to tears at two heart touching scenes. Within ten minutes of the movie my eyes were watery at the wordless montage of Carl’s and Ellie’s (Carl’s wife) life together with the above linked music playing. At a second, again wordless, tender scene much later in the movie where Carl makes his realization, I could not hold back, and my right eye was overwhelmed by tears and a stream ran all the way down to my chin. My nose was so runny I had to sniff with a tissue paper. As a man I have been denying my tears all my life and it is extremely rare to see me visibly crying. Not even in my grandparents’ (mother’s side), who partially raised me as a little boy, funerals did I cry. Up made me do just that. It speaks volumes of Pixar’s masterful storytelling and presentation in Up.
Up is easily my favorite movie of 2009 so far, and I am very tempted to declare Up as one of my favorite movies of all time. Very tempted…

Eden of the East after episode 11 – Final Thoughts

Well, that was slightly disappointing. Eden of the East had such a promising start. Its first episode displayed humor, liveliness, quirkiness, and mystery, all of which I thought would last throughout the anime. However, after the first episode the show’s pacing quickly slowed down, especially through the middle episodes where there was much talking and little happening. Even towards the very end the show remained heavy on the dialogue and light on everything else, including the relationship between Akira and Saki, which I thought was underdeveloped. Eden of the East was more of a mystery than an adventure.
The plot is driven by the classic setup of an amnesiac trying to rediscover himself. The initial questions such as “What is the past of the protagonist?”, “What is the purpose of the Selecao game?”, and “How are the bombing and missing NEETs incidents related?” provided much of the intrigue in the show. Most of questions were satisfactorily answered by the end of episode eleven. There are a few issues that remains unaddressed, such as the identities of yet unrevealed Selecaos, and the winner of the game. Perhaps they will be material for future installments of Eden of the East.
Other positives in Eden of the East include the animation; it was fairly consistently sharp and fluid. The SD modes, although rare, really adds to the humor in the series. And of course its fantastic opening sequence, which particularly stands out not only in Eden of the East, but in all of anime kingdom, and is something I will remember Eden of the East by.
Eden of the East is a somewhat accomplished take at an amnesia story with a beginning that is more exciting than it eventually is.