Yu-chan no Megane

Plot Summary

Natsume Yuujinchou, a relatively new anime that has been running for approximately 3 weeks on Japan TV, is the story of a high school boy with a dark sinister secret. The boy in question, Natsume Takashi, can actually see 妖怪 (youkai or spirits). This would normally not be an issue if you could go about your daily business trying by and large to ignore the funky looking things that wander to and fro.

Unfortunately for Natsume, his errant grandmother, Reiko, happened to have the exact same ability. Instead of going about life indifferently, Reiko had the rather nasty habit of challenging youkai for their names, which she kept in a Friendship Book of sorts. Any youkai who had the misfortune of meeting her had their names taken from them. Whoever holds the book, therefore, holds the ability to command each of these youkai. The main issue is, Reiko has passed on and the book is now in Natsume’s hands.

Cantankerous Reiko subdues youkai for sheer entertainment.

As a result, Natsume is kneedeep in crap. Youkai meet him at every turn, mistaking him for his grandmother and demanding their names in return. With the help of a spirit cat, affectionately called a variety of feline names, such as Nyanko, etc, Natsume continues on his quest to return each youkai their name.

Natsume and Nyanko, BFFs!

Thoughts

So much for the plot summary. I was rather suspicious of the anime at first, not quite knowing what it was about. However, after watching the first episode, I must say I was taken in by the hilarity of the storyline. It really helps that Inoue Kazuhiko voices Nyanko, who looks uncannily like a Fortune Cat. If you will recall, Inoue is the voice behind Hatake Kakashi in Naruto.

Keep on drooling.

He’s hilarious as Nyanko though. That’s probably the main reason I’m continuing with the series actually. I’ve been leaning towards anime that have spookier themes lately for some reason. That deal either with youkai or ayakashi. I find them immensely interesting.

Screencaps

He just doesn’t have any luck with them kinky funky creatures.

No one else can see this adorable blob.

Bahahahaha!… Err… is that supposed to be powerful?

Apparently it is… enough to do a James Bond.

He isn’t really as friendly as he looks.

Ornery creature.

See what I mean?

I think I might just try even creepier anime.

There is nothing quite like starting your life in a different environment, even if it is for the time being. As cutesy anime girls love to say… 嬉しいわ！

But I digress. My current lodging is in the neck of the woods, quite literally. For those of you who live in Singapore, you’ve probably made the correct guess. The room we’re renting is nice and cozy. In addition, the amenities are great and it doesn’t take long to get to work. Just marvellous!

I’m looking forward to the new apartment though… at least it’ll be my own place. I’m paying for more than half of it.

Is there a reason for Makino Tsukushi’s pose? Hanazawa Rui? DUN DUN DUN!

I’m also anticipating the Hana Yori Dango Final (the movie)… I’d love for Oguri Shun to reprise his role as Hanazawa Rui, but more importantly, MatsuJun as Doumyouji Tsukasa. Except the hair. I hope they style it right this time, maybe along the lines of Mizushima Hiro’s typical look.

新携帯HTCTytn

Having a rip-roaring time with my HTC Tytn II. I’m running an English ROM but with CE-Star and Microsoft Japanese IME installed. The keyboard works brilliantly and I can also view and type Softbank 絵文字 (albeit in black and white).

You won’t believe how happy this makes me. Seriously. An almost-keitai with the full functionality of a PDA locally. Woo!

To celebrate, a nice random pic of a friend’s kid. 〜〜〜〜〜 ＼(^o^)／♪

Edit: It seems that the text that comes with the photo needs to be sufficiently long so that the html on this thing doesn’t screw up.

It’s rare to find a dorama that I really really like, along the lines of Nodame Cantabile and Hanazakari no Kimitach e. The recently wrapped series, Zettai Kareshi 『絶対彼氏』 on Fuji TV, however, is one of them.

Tenjou Night at your service. The ad for Zettai Kareshi.

The story revolves around the wretched love-life of Izawa Riiko, a temp staff in the Production Department of Asamoto, a large-scale bakery franchise. After a series of failed relationships that were doomed from the start due to her “serious” demeanour (this is by Japanese standards), Riiko is invited by a scientist from Kronos Heaven to his lab in order to “change the course of her life”. Naturally, like any girl Riiko presumes it has something to do with matchmaking and gave in, entering her preferences for her “ideal boyfriend” into the Kronos Heaven system.

The last thing she expects is a completely life-like robot delivered to her doorstep in the form of the Kronos Heaven Nightly-Series #01. The rest, as they say, is history.

Major spoilers after the jump.

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Setting up Flickr on YuMe

It’s about time I resumed blogging via mobile again, since I’ve been bitten by the mobile bug once again.

This gratuitous photo is of the resident neighbourhood cat that I will miss sorely when I move later this month.

[Post-post edit: oooh, it doesn't look too bad. Might need a little html tweaking on the Flickr side of things, but pretty nifty overall!]

The QR Code is essentially a 2D barcode that looks like this:

The code for this blog, YuMe.

The nifty image above contains the url for this blog. You can pretty much store anything on it… urls, text, contact details, etc. Don’t ask me how it’s encoded or decoded though as I really have no idea. You just need a QR Code reader like Quickmark (Google it) in your mobile phone to help you decipher the code. Most Japanese keitais come equipped with a QR Code reader and generator (e.g. Softbank Toshiba and Sharp phones) and the Japanese make use of it for a variety of purposes.

The main selling point of this code is its convenience. If you’ve flipped through Japanese magazines, you’ll have noticed the plethora of such codes scattered all over advertorial pages. It provides the Japanese with the ability to capture a single url or information and store them easily on their mobiles for future reference.

And as we’re all aware, the Japanese do everything on their keitais.

While I don’t expect Singapore to move towards the typical keitai way of life (look at how i-Mode, made popular by NTT Docomo, flopped majorly over here - much to my chagrin), we really should make use of good technology. As QR Code readers are becoming more accessible such that anyone can get a copy of the free software on their mobiles, we should really utilise it.

Unfortunately, some things are just slow on the uptake over here.

Nonetheless, I’m really starting to do everything on my mobile, Singapore style. Despite my love for exotic keitais, I realised it’s quite pointless to trade function for style. I still yearn for their messaging system though. How convenient is it to have an email address tagged to your mobile number?

Besides, I can read and enter Japanese text just fine on my device.