Archive for the 'anime and manga' Category

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Eden of the East

Published on June 25, 2009 in anime and manga. 3 Comments Tags: .

eden-of-the-eastThis week, I watched all the episodes of the anime series Eden of the East (Higashi no Eden). At first, I was hesitant on watching the series due to the artwork style, but I was hooked instantly after watching the first episode.

The Plot

The anime revolve around the Selecaos – 12 people who were given phones that have a value of 10,000,000,000 yen each. This money cannot be converted into cash and must be used to save Japan. The money must also not reach zero while not being able to save Japan, if that happens the penalty is death. These Selecaos are in a game they can’t refuse to accept were there is only one winner, and will be the only one to survive in the end.

The interesting part about the story is about the personas the phones were given to. Each of these people have different beliefs, passions and personalities. But the story centers on the 9th Selecao and his quest to stop the evil plot of the other Selecao members.

The Artwork

At first I didn’t like the artwork, the characters have a weird look on their face, due to the big smiles and flat-looking nose. I really didn’t like the shading on the mid part of their noses, since it adds up to the “flat-nosed” effect. Besides that, I have no complaints. They have good backgrounds that uses vibrant colors which easily catches attention. In some parts of the anime, they used 3d objects like cars, building and even the thousand buck naked running men. I would have preferred those 3d objects to be drawn traditionally, since the characters and the backgrounds would blend more naturally.

Also. their opening theme has a good art style. I like the combination of good typography, contrasting colors and vector shapes in the video. It greatly adds to the modern effect, and they pulled it off perfectly.

Conclusion

Overall, I loved the series, Eden of the East now belongs to the list of  my favorite animes. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a unique story and great entertainment. I can’t wait for the release of their first movie on November 28, 2009.

Busy Me

Published on June 11, 2009 in anime and manga, ramblings and websites. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

I haven’t posted for a long while now. It’s actually amazing since I tend to ramble a lot on just about anything. I’m hesitant to post something without an artwork included, since I promised myself to create an artwork on every post here on my blog. But on situations like this when I have no time to create an artwork, I mustn’t let my blog be covered in flies.

narutoshippuudenOne of my projects is to work on the ChanLu Redesign mock-ups and start recoding of the web application. But… what happened instead? Ok, I won’t be ending up in excuses. I have been watching Naruto Shippuden for about more than a week now. I’m really behind the episodes since during my thesis, even though I wanted to watch the series, I didn’t. I just had the time now and my officemates are updated to the latest manga chapter. You know how horrible the feeling is when your friends are talking about what’s happening on the newly released chapter, and you have no clue about it. So now I’m about 3/4 of all the episodes of Naruto Shippuden. I may eventually read the manga, but I’ll manage my time better.

About 2 weeks ago, my Ubuntu was upgraded from Hardy Heron to Jaunty Jackalope with the help of Wayne. We decided for a fresh install so all my settings and applications were gone. I reinstalled Songbird just now, and even VLC media player. so I may watch anime and movies in this operating system. Also my localhost is ready for the development of ChanLu, but I’m on the addicted mode of watching Naruto.

Also, I posted earlier about the “designer’s website” at my workplace. We now have a deadline on the end of July. So we must hurry up on the development process of this website and hopefully have more time working on ChanLu besides the other projects I’m working on. But I’ll try on making some freebies to make up for the delay on the development of ChanLu.

DataMapper Problems on DreamHost

Published on May 7, 2009 in anime and manga, art, design and programming. 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

poutingYes, I do want to pout right now. Here’s a fast drawing done today, even with messy shading. This drawing features a girl drawn in the style of Yuu Watase (creator of Fushigi Yuugi, Ayashi no Ceres, Alice 19th and etc.), I used to like her artworks back then, but now I have my own preferred style. I do love the girl characters of Watase when pouting, since they look so cute!

So, what’s making me pout then? Yesterday, Wayne gave me the code for the config.ru file for the ruby application. The ruby gem path now works in DreamHost! But I still have an error, just one error though, there’s a fastthread installation in DreamHost currently version 1.0.1, but DataMapper requires 1.0.4. The fastthread 1.0.1 is activated by another gem first, so 1.0.4 can’t be activated anymore. I contacted DreamHost about the problem, they won’t upgrade the gem on a server basis. I must add the fastthread upgrade to the suggestions corner and wait for people to vote if they want the upgrade or not.

I’ll try to find other means of using DataMapper for the recoding of ChanLu Design, since I won’t give up on using that wonderful gem. Here’s the code that Wayne gave me, tell me though if there are other better alternatives.

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if (ENV['HOME'] =~ /^\/home\//)  ## DREAMHOST
  require "#{ENV['HOME']}/.gems/gems/rack-0.9.1/lib/rack.rb"
  require "#{ENV['HOME']}/.gems/gems/sinatra-0.9.1.1/lib/sinatra.rb"
  ENV['GEM_HOME'] = "#{ENV['HOME']}/.gems"
  ENV['GEM_PATH'] = "#{ENV['HOME']}/.gems:/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8"
  require 'rubygems'
  Gem.clear_paths
else
  require 'sinatra'
end
require 'datamapper'
require 'haml'
require 'app'
run Sinatra::Application

The rack and sinatra gems are being required manually because when requiring it by using their names, a lower rack version is activated which is installed default in DreamHost.

haruhi_suzumiya_vector_by_leek128

Besides that, I have been watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Though I still haven’t been able to finish the series yet due to my personal projects and work. I do like the series, its worth a few laughs and the characters are cute! I also find Itsuki Koizumi quite appealing.

I will be posting more about this series after I watch all the episodes, maybe this weekend if my brother bugs me onto watching this show.

00-cover2Also, I have been reading Japanese comics (manga) – shoujo manga is my current genre of interest, I read Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You) but sadly there are no more scanlantions for the other chapters. But this manga is really fun! It is about a girl who is really pale having long black hair and is being called as Sadako, encounters the “refreshing” guy – Kazehaya which will open her up to new opportunities such as having friends. This story is a love comedy, which has cute artwork and will hook you up wanting for more.

hana-to-akuma

I am also reading Hana to Akuma, it is about a Demon who decided to live on earth, and adopted a baby human. Though the story focuses when the child is 14 years old already. The artwork of the male characters is awesome, they look cool, handsome and cute, depending on what they want to portray. But the girls in this manga seem like blank looking, it’s only my own opinion though. I do find the story entertaining and it gives me a good amout of laughs. I haven’t finished reading the current chapters of this manga, so I may post later more about this series.

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