Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
New season summaries!
I'm still making it through my backlog of shows this season (I've only watched Special A and Code Geass R2), but the bloggers at THAT anime blog have more time than I and have summarized their top 5 shows of the season.
On my personal to watch list: Kurenai, Itazura na kiss, Allison to Lillia, and if they ever get subbed, RD and Library Wars. Maybe Kanokon...
In other news, my dream TV is not as awesome as I was hoping, due to the use of a different panel than the XF550. (This is relevant to anime because, well, that's all I watch on my TV :D).
On my personal to watch list: Kurenai, Itazura na kiss, Allison to Lillia, and if they ever get subbed, RD and Library Wars. Maybe Kanokon...
In other news, my dream TV is not as awesome as I was hoping, due to the use of a different panel than the XF550. (This is relevant to anime because, well, that's all I watch on my TV :D).
Saturday, April 12, 2008
ef - the latter tale OP
I am impressed again by the quality of the OP for this game (the next game after ef - a fairy tale of the two). It's practically movie quality! I'm still on the fence about the music, but the animation is gorgeous!
Thursday, April 10, 2008
What would a banjo sound like in a jpop song?
If you've ever wondered what a banjo in a JPop song would sound (or look) like, I've got the music video for you!
It's strangely almost how I imagined it! Anyway, I'm going to go back to working on my image processing assignment.
It's strangely almost how I imagined it! Anyway, I'm going to go back to working on my image processing assignment.
Monday, April 7, 2008
On anime and sound
Oh my, I'm drowning in work so don't expect any updates (not like you did anyway, you one person reading my blog). I did read interesting editorial on why people tend to view anime in a positive light, and I agree with the main point that if you're watching anime for entertainment, you're going to try to get as much enjoyment out of it as possible, which usually means liking what you watch :D.
In other news, I upgraded my sound system to the Onkyo HT-SR800. Ghost Hound sounds awesome, and my subwoofer is quite capable of annoying the neighbors. I was previously using a cheap $30 computer speaker system (4.1), and this system is much, much better. However, I wonder if the money was better spent on a better TV since I think for anime, that perhaps the picture is more important than the sound? Or maybe I'm a more discerning viewer than listener.
If you're still with me, I also finished two additional series this weekend. First was Bamboo Blade, which some people liked, some people didn't like, but everybody wants more of. Next up was Hatenkou Yuugi. The show had its problems: there are some issues of pacing, the crew just warps from one place to the next, and the back story for the characters could be developed better (like, why do the three of them have the ability to use magic?), but the witty banter between the characters saved it for me. I think most people have the view on Hatenkou Yuugi, and again, people want more!
In other news, I upgraded my sound system to the Onkyo HT-SR800. Ghost Hound sounds awesome, and my subwoofer is quite capable of annoying the neighbors. I was previously using a cheap $30 computer speaker system (4.1), and this system is much, much better. However, I wonder if the money was better spent on a better TV since I think for anime, that perhaps the picture is more important than the sound? Or maybe I'm a more discerning viewer than listener.
If you're still with me, I also finished two additional series this weekend. First was Bamboo Blade, which some people liked, some people didn't like, but everybody wants more of. Next up was Hatenkou Yuugi. The show had its problems: there are some issues of pacing, the crew just warps from one place to the next, and the back story for the characters could be developed better (like, why do the three of them have the ability to use magic?), but the witty banter between the characters saved it for me. I think most people have the view on Hatenkou Yuugi, and again, people want more!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
A bundle of anime
You don't realize how hard it is to come up with titles until you can't. This is a lame titled post, but nobody reads this anyway so what does it matter. This week, along with the freakishly warm weather for 1 day here (it got my hopes up with its near 60 degree high, then dropped my hopes down with the temperature to below freezing), I got not 1, not 2, but 3 animes I've been anticipating!
First arrival was RahXephon, which was on backorder from RightStuf. This was followed by Noein, which I picked up from Best Buy, and today, the critically acclaimed 5cm per second, also previously on backorder from RightStuf.
All these DVDs have made me realize one thing -- either I'm more discriminating than most people, my computer isn't configured properly, computers suck for watching DVDs, or no anime company encodes their DVDs correctly. What the hell am I talking about? Interlacing. Mplayer, the app with the most debug information, continually detects a switch from progressive to interlaced content, with the result that the pullup filter doesn't work that well. DVD players that use my supposedly awesome video card's deinterlacing hardware, also fail for the same reason (ATI cards, and I expect nVidia as well, have something called vector adaptive deinterlacing). I can get bearable results using bob or blend-type filters, but those just blur the interlacing lines and are generally lame. So at this point, I have to settle for crappy DVD playback from my computer :(.
This week I also finished True Tears, Shigofumi, Dragonaut, and Banner of the Stars. True Tears was epic and surprisingly realistic until the end, but you can read some other blog entries from other people with more interesting writing styles than you'll find here. People just seem to love it. I'd say it's a buy for me if it ever comes out as a DVD boxset or at least cheaper than Bandai Visual's supposed pricing. As for Shigofumi, well, the very end was kind of eh, but I enjoyed it, as did this person and this other person. I'd only get this in a cheap boxset though. Dragonaut was pretty bad, I don't want to waste my time on talking about it. Banner of the Stars is a few years old, but it's an amazing sci-fi story, but works best if you can watch it in one sitting. You can read another opinion.
First arrival was RahXephon, which was on backorder from RightStuf. This was followed by Noein, which I picked up from Best Buy, and today, the critically acclaimed 5cm per second, also previously on backorder from RightStuf.
All these DVDs have made me realize one thing -- either I'm more discriminating than most people, my computer isn't configured properly, computers suck for watching DVDs, or no anime company encodes their DVDs correctly. What the hell am I talking about? Interlacing. Mplayer, the app with the most debug information, continually detects a switch from progressive to interlaced content, with the result that the pullup filter doesn't work that well. DVD players that use my supposedly awesome video card's deinterlacing hardware, also fail for the same reason (ATI cards, and I expect nVidia as well, have something called vector adaptive deinterlacing). I can get bearable results using bob or blend-type filters, but those just blur the interlacing lines and are generally lame. So at this point, I have to settle for crappy DVD playback from my computer :(.
This week I also finished True Tears, Shigofumi, Dragonaut, and Banner of the Stars. True Tears was epic and surprisingly realistic until the end, but you can read some other blog entries from other people with more interesting writing styles than you'll find here. People just seem to love it. I'd say it's a buy for me if it ever comes out as a DVD boxset or at least cheaper than Bandai Visual's supposed pricing. As for Shigofumi, well, the very end was kind of eh, but I enjoyed it, as did this person and this other person. I'd only get this in a cheap boxset though. Dragonaut was pretty bad, I don't want to waste my time on talking about it. Banner of the Stars is a few years old, but it's an amazing sci-fi story, but works best if you can watch it in one sitting. You can read another opinion.
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