Darker than Black Blu-ray Box Set

Title: Darker than Black Blu-ray Box Set
Catalog number: ANSX-5031
Number of discs: 5
Date of release: 30 Sep 2009
Price: 36,750 yen
Total running time: 630 minutes
Number of episodes: 26

Darker than Black DVD Vol 9 (Final)

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 9
Catalog number: ANSB-2799
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 26 March 2008
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 8

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 8
Catalog number: ANSB-2798
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 27 February 2008
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 7

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 7
Catalog number: ANSB-2797
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 23 Jan 2008
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 6

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 6
Catalog number: ANSB-2796
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 26 December 2007
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 5

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 5
Catalog number: ANSB-2795
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 28 November 2007
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 4

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 4
Catalog number: ANSB-2794
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 24 October 2007
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 3

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 3
Catalog number: ANSB-2793
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 26 September 2007
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 75 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 2

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 2
Catalog number: ANSB-2792
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 22 August 2007
Price: 6,930 yen (inclusive of tax)
Total run time: 72 minutes

Darker than Black DVD Vol 1

Title: Darker than Black DVD Vol 1
Catalog number: ANSB-2791
Produced by: Aniplex
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 25 July 2007
Price: 5,040 yen
Total run time: 48 minutes

Darker than Black Gekiban (OST)

Title: Darker than Black Kuro no Keiyakusha Gekiban
Catalog number: SVWC-7478
Produced by: Sony Music Entertainment
Number of discs: 1
Date of release: 25 July 2007
Price: 2,940 yen (inclusive of tax)




Track List:
1. GO Dark
2. HOWLING(TV size)
3. ハイヒールラナウェイ
4. Tenderly
5. シド
6. Was
7. Outside
8. No Ones Home
9. Guy
10. ScatCat
11. ケイヤクシャ
12. Shadow
13. クロ
14. Deadly Work
15. テンタイカンソク
16. BlueCat
17. ツキアカリ(TV size ver.)
18. Water Forest
19. Blend in
20. インのピアノ

Report on Anime Festival Asia 2008

The Anime Festival Asia 2008 was held at Suntec Convention Hall 403-404 on 22 and 23 Nov. This report is based on my visit on 22nd Nov. It seems that cosplayers do not have to pay in order to enter the venue but I'm not sure on this point though. There weren't as many cosplayers as I expected (or they were in the cosplayers resting area?). There were many characters who I do not recognize but I saw at least 3 Suzumiya Haruhi cosplayers around. There was also Mr. Naruto and Mr. Ichigo from Bleach. I couldn't see any Tenipuri cosplayers though.

Anyway, be prepared for the long queue. The organisers only allowed online booking for people who buy tickets for both days so I had to join the queue. Well, if not for my visit to the Liang Court Kino, I wouldn't have known about the event but I wouldn't say that my expectations are met though. In fact, I left the venue after 1 hour or so.

Pardon me for the quality of the photos. I took them with my handphone and was quite surprised to see many people armed with professional cameras and flashlights whatsover. Guess I wasn't such a "serious" anime fan after all. :P Lighting wasn't too adequate for some areas while for some, the spotlights made it difficult to take a picture without a light spot.

First of all, I headed for the Shonen Jump 40th anniversary world tour. This was supposed to be the main highlight of my visit BUT I was very disappointed.

On the website of AFA 08, I quote the following:

"Co-organized by Chuang Yi Publishing, AFA08 will be showcasing exclusive artworks from Shonen Jump’s most popular Manga titles such as NARUTO, DEATH NOTE, D.GRAY MAN, DRAGON BALL, ONE PIECE, PRINCE OF TENNIS and more, in celebration of Shonen Jump’s 40th Anniversary!"

However, what this actually meant was one piece of colour drawing for the titles mentioned above and a coloured original drawing for one particular chapter in Dragon Ball! And mind you, the so-called exclusive artworks aren't that special after all. They've appeared before in various forms before. At least I can safely say that the Tennis no Oujisama picture appeared in one of the fanbooks and the picture book before. There goes the novelty of these exclusive pictures! There was also one short introduction on the story and author. Frankly speaking, I felt cheated. This wasn't what I expected.

Tennis no Oujisama a.k.a. Prince of Tennis - One of my favourite Top 3 characters is not here! What riles me more is that this is not a recent illustration too! Aargh!






And here's Death Note with L conspicuously missing from the lineup! Light, Ryuk, Mikami, Near and Mello are featured. Luckily, Misa isn't around. (You should know how much I dislike seeing Misa by now ^__^)








I nearly couldn't recognize this picture since the characters are not featured prominently. This is from D.Grayman. There are some other pictures of this series at another section of this event.





This has got to be one of the better pictures in this section because of its eyecatching colours and high resolution. Here's the picture from Bleach. Well, I don't watch this series (I heard it's still going on) so I don't have much to comment. I did see someone dress up as Ichigo though.




In terms of colour vibrancy, this should be No.1. Coming from One Piece, which is still ongoing and one of the top 10 animes every week in Japan.






Another long-life manga, NARUTO. Just like what happened to D.Gray-man, I had problems identifying it from afar.







Last but not least, Dragon Ball. As there was an entire set of drawings, I will only post one photo here. Anyway, I only took one photo so I do not have more to offer.






After visiting this section, I passed by the Animax booth where there was supposed to be an authograph session at 4pm by one of the creators from a new series to be shown on the channel. I didn't stay too long there. Animax was featuring three animes i.e. XXXholic, Darker than Black and Bleach. Much as I like Animax for bringing in a lot of latest series, I don't think I will ever subscribe to it. I simply don't have time to watch TV. I only watch TV during weekend nights so there's no point for me to have that channel. By the way, do they show it in the original track or show the dubbed version?



Next comes the highlight for a lot of people. Exclusive figurines from various companies are on show in the glass cabinets and everyone was furiously snapping away. It was hard to wait for a space to take the photos. For a start, here's Doraemon. Who's the yellow figure on the left though? I must say that Doraemon was the first anime I watched, no doubt it was dubbed in Chinese and shown on early Saturday. I believe it is still running on our local TV channel.

And coming next are some figurines from Death Note. Both in real-size and chibi-format, but from different companies:

In real-size format, Light, L and Misa are featured. Misa is shown as blindfolded as in when she was imprisoned by L. Closeup shots only available for Light and L:















The chibi-versions...I thought the Misa and Light figures didn't look good so I didn't take a close-up shot.






Last but not least, there's Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu... The reflection is really bad here. Using glass cabinets is fine but the organisers should not use see-through cabinets. When taking pictures, it is inevitable that we will also capture people who are walking on the opposite aisle. Coupled with lights from the ceiling and flashes, the effect on the photos isn't too good. It would have been better to use opaque surfaces at the back of the display.




At one corner of the exhibition hall, there are several arcade game machines where a gamer contest is being held. I couldn't get inside that area as it was rather packed. I could only see racing game machines like Initial D and Wangan Midnight at the outer side of the area. It appears that you have to use tokens to play these games but I'm not too sure as to how they decide the winners for this contest. There was a bigger screen at the inner part of this corner where an emcee was standing on an elevated platform. I think that could be the highlight game of this event.



ODEX, the anime VCD distributor now infamous for its lawsuits against anime downloaders, also had a corner peddling their stuff. What caught my eye wasn't their merchandise but rather the gigantic three-part panels which had an introduction of some of the new series like Skip Beat and Code Geass. Well, I watched only one episode of the anime and didn't really like it but it seems that the manga might be a better bet. I may just pick up the manga of Skip Beat one day. The D.Gray-man panels were also done up pretty nicely. Frankly speaking, if I want to buy animes, I will buy the original DVDs from Japan no doubt they don't have subtitles. I don't need them anyway. It's just because I feel that buying the originals is the best way to show support so I don't want to buy from indirect distributors. And the originals are much better in terms of content and packaging. That being said, the prices are of course much more expensive than the local versions. Of course, I can't deny that the presence of vendors like ODEX would have helped in boosting anime's penetration into the general market.

The three-part panel from D.Gray-man. A description of the main characters and story.







The reverse part of the panel.











Another side on the reverse side of the panel.








Last but not least, there's a feature on Sky Crawlers which is going to be shown from next Thursday in cinemas. I don't like the character design but it seems like ths story could be quite good. When they were screening the production introduction, I couldn't recognize Kikuchi Rinko who is voicing Kusanagi Suito. I could recognize Kase Ryo who plays the lead Kannami Yuichi though. I'm still thinking whether I should go and watch this movie. At the feature site, there are some model fighter planes and the making-of DVD from Japan on sale.

In conclusion, this anime festival was seriously lacking in some major areas:

- Focus on Gundam
It just feels as if the whole event is about Gundam, Lots of Gundam stuff on sale. Even though the website says that they will be bringing Akihabara to town, the limited range of merchandise is disappointing. I am sure Akihabara has more to Gundam. As such, I had nothing to buy there.

- 40th Shonen Jump exhibit
Cheated. It wasn't what I expected at all.

- Cosplayers missing?
I read from the website that there was supposed to be a cosplayers event at 2pm but I didn't see many of them. Just where did they go?

- Lighting and layout
It was quite dark at some spots so the spotlights on some of the exhibits were a hindrance when taking photos. The two-way glass cabinets wasn't such a good idea. Layout of the booths wasn't too good. Some sections had very narrow aisles while some like ODEX had so much space to themselves.

In short, if this is going to be held next year, it would be best to:
- have merchandise which are as extensive as possible. Anime is not just about Gundam or the lolicon genres. If Animate could set up a big booth here, it would be nice.
- allow online booking of tickets. The corridors at Suntec City aren't that wide so queueing up is troublesome and a squeezy event.
- not make empty promises. It was extremely disappointing to see exhibits which do not live up to expectations.

HOWLING by abingdon boys school (OP of Darker than Black)

Title: HOWLING
Artiste: abingdon boys school
Lyrics: Takanori Nishikawa
Music: Shibasaki Hiroshi

sosogareta mabuta kara nagare dashita namida
kuri kaeshi mushimareru risei to chi no kakera

I don't want anything anymore
(abaki dasu kanjou ga around Turn round)
I don't feel the way as before
(Gang Bang Son of a gun)

karameta futatsu no mune no sukima de
hoshigaru dakedo kawaita kono karada ga

kegareta yubisaki de yoru wo sosogi konde
chigireru made kimi wo kouji akete
asai nemuri no naka hakareta omoi kishimu
nami mo kamo ima wa subete keshisaretara

Sun will rise Close your eyes
Downfallen (Fallen) Falling
Hold inside
Just HOWLING in the shadows

taema naku furishikiru ame ni utare nagara
shigami tsuku sono senaka ni fukaku tsume wo tateta

I don't need anything anymore
(No one else can take my place)
I don't see the way as before
(I've been lost without a trace)

dareka no fureta yume no tsuzuki wo
saegiru you ni tozashite ita kokoro ga

kegareta yubisaki ga nando mo dakiatte
ate naku kimi wo tekuri yosete
awai kioku ga mada nokoshita itami ni nijimu
te ni ireta mono ga subete ayamachi de mo

ushinau tabi ni mezamete yuku chikara de

kegareta yubisaki de yoru wo sosogi konde
chigireru made kimi wo kouji akete
asai nemuri no naka mugareta omoi kizamu
nami mo kamo ima wa subete keshisaretara

Sun will rise, Close your eyes
Downfallen (Fallen) Falling
Give me sight to see inside
I'm calling
Take a bite night by night
Downfallen (Fallen) Falling
Hold inside
Just HOWLING in the shadows

Animes to watch in Spring 2007

Here's a list of animes I will try to watch this coming spring. Somehow, I find that my list keeps getting shorter with each passing season. Does that mean I have higher expectations of what I watch or is it due to the decreasing quality of shows these days? I have no idea how many I will watch from the start till the end too so this list doesn't give a clear indication of whether I will cover the series after all in this blog.

I know I haven't been writing reviews these days so I will have to find time to play catch-up slowly. And who knows when that will be as the backlog gets bigger? ^___^

Victorian Romance Emma The 2nd Act 英国恋物語エマ

O.A. 16 April 2007, Mondays

Story:

Continuation from the first series which ended with Emma leaving William. She begins life at a new mansion, under a new master and it seems like there's a new suitor too. On the other hand, although William cannot forget Emma, Eleanor is waiting for him to change his mind and this puts pressure on William in the process.

Reasons for watching this:

1) This has got to be the No.1 anime I'm looking forward this coming spring. I wasn't too happy with the way the first series ended so now, there's a tinge of hope that Emma and William might end up together after all. However, if the story wants to create problems for them to manifest the theme of "true love never runs smooth", I guess we will be seeing lots of crisis-filled developments along the way. By the way, the new suitor looks like a weirdo to me...seems like a psycho?! What's the hand doing there in the picture?

2) For the sake of Ueda Yuji as Hakim, my favourite character in this series. He's sure to lend a helping hand to William and Emma and I can't wait to see Hakim up to his antics again.

Love Complex (Love Con)ラブコン

O.A. 7 April 2007, Saturdays

Story:

A tall girl and a vertically-challenged boy's relationship. Previously made into a real-life movie starring Koike Teppei and Fujisawa Ema

Reasons for watching this:

1) This seems to be a light comedy which should keep me happy. I just hope it doesn't go the way of Bokura ga Ita i.e. emotionally-heavy when it comes to discussing the issues of how height affects the couple in question. I want it to be relatively light-hearted all the way.

2) Seiyuus...well, although they aren't the leads...seeing their names is enough: Tsuda Kenjirou, Suwabe Junichi and Onosaka Masaya. Inui, Atobe and Momoshiro in the same anime?! That's something to look forward to...

Darker than Black Kuro no Keiyakusha 黒の契約者

O.A. 5 April 2007, Thursdays

Cast:

Kiuchi Hidenobu, Fukuzono Misato, Sawaki Yuuya, Ikeda Masaru, Mizuki Nana, Shimura Tomoyuki, Fukuda Nobuaki, Toriumi Kosuke, Inamura Yuna, Sakamoto Chinatsu

Story:

The unexplainable appearance of the Hell's Gate in Tokyo brings about the loss of Tokyo's real sky. This leads to a group of people with special abilities who trade their powers to obtain information for spy organizations and carry out tasks like killing people. They are called the Keiyakusha 契約者.

The lead character Hei (Black) disguises himself as a foreign student from China, Li Shunshen and blends into the streets of Tokyo while carrying out his tasks. He is known for his strong ability and ruthless methods thus earning the title of BK201 The Black Death God.

Reasons for watching this:

1) Kiuchi Hidenobu. I'm totally obsessed with his voice so the moment I saw his name tagged to the lead character's name...I made my decision immediately. ^__^

2) I like stories with mysteries and suspense so this suits me just fine in terms of its genre. As to whether it will turn out to be as bad as TOKKO which was wrapped up too hastily, I certainly hope not.

Romeo & Juliet

O.A. 4 April 2007, Wednesdays

Cast:
Mizushima Daichuu, Mizusawa Fumie, Toriumi Kosuke, Nojima Yushi, Matsurai Yumi, Hirohashi Ryo, Ohara Sayaka, Okiayu Ryoutarou, Kawasumi Ayako, Tachibana Shinnosuke etc.

Theme song: Inori ~ You Raise Me Up ~ by Lena Park

Reasons for watching this:

1) Familiar names like Toriumi Kosuke (Sengoku from Tenipuri), Okiayu Ryoutarou (Tezuka-bucchou from Tenipuri), Ohara Sayaka (Rika-san from Hachikuro) and last but not least, Kawasumi Ayako (Nodame!!) Seiyuus who I like and are familiar are usually a big pull factor when it comes to deciding what new animes to watch.

2) The story is a tried-and-tested formula which never goes out of fashion over the years so I guess there's no harm in refreshing my memory of this Shakespeare classic. Besides, the images look quite nice to me and the background setting should be as good, if not better than what I saw in Gankutsuou, given that the two main characters come from rich and influential families.

Wellber no Monogatari (Sisters of Wellber)ウエルベールの物語

O.A. from 3 April 2007, Tuesdays

Cast:
Rita Shioru (Takahashi Mikako)
Tina Rota (Takeuchi Junko)
Sherry (Sendai Eri)
Girano Do (Borujuraku Cho)
Gernia Han (Kusuda Toshiyuki)
Garabad Aigar (Namikawa Daisuke)
Heidel Shioru (Kamibeppu Hitoji)
Roden Shioru (Sugita Tomokazu)
Jin (Terashima Takuatsu)
Vice (Tsuruoka Satoshi)

Story:
Ever since the major war 10 years ago, the Wellber kingdom has been trying hard to maintain the peace and order. However, the King, Heidel fears that history will repeat itself as his neighbouring country, Sangatras seems to be harbouring intentions of attacking Wellber. In order to prevent such a move, Heidel decides to let his daughter, Rita get married to the prince of Sangatras, Gernia.

However, Rita stabs Gernia and runs away to avoid punishment. The King of Sangatras is furious at this development and orders that Rita be captured and openly executed in 14 days or he will declare war against Wellber. Rita decides to run away to a neutral nation, Gurita so as to seek help.

On the other hand, a female thief, Tina sneaks into Wellber for the sake of some treasure and happens to see what happened when Rita stabbed Gernia...A man by the name of C is seeking Tina's whereabouts so as to take revenge for his parents and ends up being Rita's bodyguard on her way to Gurita.

Reasons for watching this:
1) This is from Production I.G and the crew of Tennis no Oujisama. Being a fan of Tenipuri, I'm rather curious to see what the team can come up with this time round.

2) Familiar names like Takahashi Mikako, Kusuda Toshiyuki, Namikawa Daisuke and Tsuruoka Satoshi from Tenipuri are back. There's also Sugita Tomokazu from Hachimitsu to Clover. What's more coincidental is that Kusuda and Namikawa play buddies again...a renewal of the relationship between Shishido and Ootori from Tenipuri? And Takahashi and Sugita from Hachikuro (Yamada and Mayama) become siblings this time round? That's why I'm rather eager to find out how their voices feel like in a different setting.

3) From the trailer, it seems like there's quite a bit of tension and action going on so I guess it will be interesting to see how the plot unravels.