let’s go where this dawn ends

Truly magical experience.
Phenomenal solos (the bass vs guitar battles *O*), amazing showmanship all around;
also everyone is so sweet and everyone-besides-Yojiro (lmao) is tiny(!)
and Satoshi is actually pretty good at Chinese lolol.
No Order Made but they did pm all their other hits (Oshakashama is electrifying live, btw)
and everything was perfect.
I wish the gig had been longer (it lasted slightly less than two hours, I think?)
but it was completely worth the price and hoarse throat.

asdfjwer I love them so much. ;;;
COME BACK SOON PLS PLS PLS
(but not too soon because I will feel guilty about splurging again)
(and also not too much later because I might not be in SG)

AND GUESS WHO'S GOING TO THE 7 JUNE SHOWWWWW

SO TRIPPY AND PERFECT OH GOODNESS

Music:
-ACTUAL QUEEN
-RADWIMPS' NEW ALBUM IS SO GOOD?
This surprised me, actually -
I was excited, but loving nearly every track off one of their albums is a definite first for me.
-MODERN TIMES REPACKAGE ON 20 DEC ASDLJFWL


Trying to get back into the reading habit.
Attempt #1 was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,
which was... a bit of a disappointment, to say the least. D:
Occasional moments of promise (beautifully-expressed thoughts, an interesting - if caricatured - main character)
but ugh so painfully pretentious,
especially that whole subplot about mute grandpa
and that useless scene about the bombings and the escaped zoo animals
(which I remember for all the wrong reasons).
Very Miss-Miss-lookie-I-can-write! tryhard.

Attempt #2: So I decided to borrow the first book that caught my eye, commercial or otherwise,
and ended up with Let The Right One In (I know, something like 4-5 years late).
About a third of the way through now and it's difficult going (the ugliness is kind of suffocating)
but it is bald and chilling and just all-round fab.

Then I gave up the indiscriminate gig and borrowed an Auster book. :3


ETA:
Finished Let The Right One In.

Getting the brickbats out of the way:
1) It sort of ran out of speed in the last third.
Something to do with the multiple parallel storylines and brief lapses into floridity, I think.
2) Appreciated the devotion to detail, but the vampire mythology was a tad too neat/complete
(by the end I pm know exactly how vampires are made, why stakes kill,
what bloodlust feels like(!) and why it's so difficult to resist, etc etc).
Leave something to the imagination pls :(

But I loved it.
Actually remarked out loud at one point that this felt like the future of modern horror lit?

I adore that the vampire menace was merely a vehicle to explore the monsters humans carry in us.
Our brutality, our fear, our pride, those shameful urges we hide from the public eye;
our thirst (no pun intended) for life even at the expense of others
(you even get Virginia as a symbol of the choices Eli could have made but didn't,
just in case you didn't catch it the first time round).
Oskar's eventual isolation and departure is - more than a product of his relationship with Eli -
the culmination of bullying, bystander effects, permissive parenting...
and, perhaps, a simple lack of understanding.
It's a feat that this is where most of the bleakness in the novel lies,
not in cheap supernatural/gore tricks (though this was nicely done too, lol).

Also: ambiguous, sympathetic characters and relationships,
pretty good use of multiple POVs to tell a story non-repetitively (though that pesky lack of gaps again),
the matter-of-fact handling of pricklier subjects (homosexuality, gender, paedophilia),
nicely crisp style.

SAKANACTION'S KOUHAKU DEBUT ugh I'm so happy for them?! ;;


Oh-chan -
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my favourite idol
and the awesomest leader (or not quite, lol) one could wish for. :'D
...I often think that I'd be a much happier person if I were more like you.
May you have many more years of doing what you want to do. <3

Hanzawa Naoki, ep1:
Sakai Masato infuses every move with so much steely (ponderous?) gravitas
I feel like I'm in a period drama hahaha (Ooku, maybe? Lol).
Idk how the plot's going to hold up over ten/however many episodes they're planning,
but this was a pretty promising start, imo?
The message seems fairly standard,
but Hanzawa is so awfully rootable-for -
I was legit chanting 'YES GIVE IT TO THEMMM' throughout that inquiry scene -
and Aya is hilarious and generally adorable
(a bit too bubbly at points? But still. Adorable. *O* ).
I like how down-and-dirty the financial stuff gets (even if it's just for laughs),
and how the hero ISN'T BATTLING THE SYSTEM ALL ALONE bc that would be so tiring to watch.
(I also kind of want to find out what he planned to do when he reached the top of Tokyo Chuo asdlifjw)

I DIDN'T RECOGNISE YUTO AT FIRST.
HE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A TWENTY-SOMETHING-YEAR-OLD?
WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?



Woman, ep2:
Cancer?? SHOW I TRUSTED YOU :(((
The tone so far is - sadly enough - similar to that of Mother
(though I wasn't expecting anything different),
and the subs seem to be missing important nuances of the dialogue,
but I love the dimension Shiori adds to the enterprise
(it's interesting because without her the show really could just be titled 'Mother' as well,
but I suppose a redefining of the relationship between Koharu and Shin is on the cards)
and Nozomi is lovely.



Watched Tantei wa Bar ni Iru and Fune o Amu on the plane;
have yet to see Ryuhei play a character that rouses him beyond languor lol.

Caught Platina Data too,
but was too distracted by the scientific implausibility of the premise to appreciate it. ><
Though it did confirm that Nino makes a much better Sad Person than Angry lmao.
Bought the Ryu scenes more than the Kagura ones.

I really liked the Strawberry Night movie. :D
The whodunit plotline lived up to my expectations.
Yeah the ~doomed love interest~ angle was sort of gratuitous
but the chemistry was fab so it wasn't even close to disappointing (apparently I am easy to please).
They didn't milk the splitting of the Himekawa team as much as they could have though.
I WANTED YOU TO MAKE ME CRY, SIGH.
(Though I for one would not want Himekawa as my leader lol.)
And ofc one obligatory screech - just one! - of KIKUTA-SAMA COME TO MEEE



Listening to D.M. rn and it's pretty good?
I mean, there's no urge to skip songs like there was for his other two albums.
And it's cute how Daichi is all happy kid while performing and 'yo brotha' attempts at ~swag~ offstage
(and sometimes onstage too haha).
Gaps are the best thing. :')

NEW LEO SONG ON THE 24TH YESSS BB IS BACK~~
BEG ON THE 29TH;
SPYAIR ON 7 AUG (PLEASE BE AS GOOD AS IKE IS HOT).


Okay. Hurricane.
It's actually funny because this is so far removed from what I typically listen to
that I couldn't even tell if it was good or bad
(I have yet to be able to get through a full listen of Fantastic Baby /orz).
Omona (mostly) says it's basic;
me - it has its catchy moments, and I like the use of Dae's voice
(e.g. the pretty 'oh's, the slight staccato on 'star')
and, upon further listen, Zelo's rap -
but otherwise... D:
+ TOO MUCH DAE, TOO MUCH
coupled with the unintentional hilarity of the MV
(some caper film-esque storyline would have saved it but NOPE
they decide to have random shots of members jamming in place/in party cars lol)
and the disappointment stemming from the fact that these producers are the No Mercy ones...
I'm assuming they're saving the big guns for the final song/MV so TS DON'T DISAPPOINT PLZ.
Not to mention all three title songs are different
so the last will probably be as far removed from this as this is from Coffee Shop.

IT'S BEEN OUT FOR A WEEK /CRIES
(Lmao a crowd of spinning ballerinas.
You know some storyboard guy somewhere
is congratulating himself on inventing this (super)fresh! way
of making a PV look like it has a larger budget/more artistic merit than it really does.)


O.O THE WHITE VERSION OF THE 24HR TEE IS AWFULLY PRETTY
(AND REFLECTIVE OF BOTH KUSAMA YAYOI'S AND OHNO'S STYLES) DDD:
Very, very tempted. Is it worth $36 (or £18, in a bid to make myself feel better)?


空中庭園:
The flashier - for better or for worse - cousin of Tokyo Sonata.
(Was pleasantly surprised by how different from Aoi Haru it was, actually?)
Visually gorgeous in a languid kind of way (notwithstanding the excessive use of spinning camera),
tinged with dark humour in unexpected corners
and (O.O) subject to a constant undercurrent of creepy even at its most mundane.

Ughhh was practically holding my breath throughout the birthday party scene -
first during the tension/those vicious retaliatory stabs,
then during the palpable grief and regret in the SacchanXEriko conversation. ;;

Okay, the ending confused me. ><
- The way I read it, Eriko rewrote the bitter truth in the blood-rain
(and I'm certain this could be phrased less cheesily, but oh well),
which would be a cool parallel to Sacchan's admission
that her memories became more pleasant the more she dreamed them.
But this wouldn't explain the fact that Sacchan seemed to think herself a better mother
than Eriko remembered her to be.
- Alternatively (as I read in one or two online reviews after the fact),
Eriko was reverting to the truth in the blood-rain
(i.e. her memories had up till this point been lies, just like the rest of her life was a farce).
But the point of said farce was to compensate for the reality compassed by those memories,
so this wouldn't really make sense, would it? :3

Idk, maybe I favour the former interpretation
because this would then raise the further question of whether lies are justified
should they /truly/ make one happier
(and when Eriko smiles genuinely for the first time in the film's closing minutes,
it really does feel as if everything would be worth it, just to get to that point) -
which would extend the film's exploration of the collapse of lies covering up a LACK OF happiness.
(In this case, the discrepancies between Sacchan's and Eriko's perceptions of their relationship
would merely be that - differing perceptions.)
Whereas the latter would mean the conclusion was unequivocally optimistic.

...I wonder if the ambiguity was intended, or if I'm just being dense. L-lol.

Yes. Just.
YES

Kazoku Game (ep2):
...is surprisingly absorbing?? xD
Not a fan of Yoshimoto's methods at all
(though the whole shock-tactics-catalysing-change route is very Kaseifu no Mita),
but it's interesting to guess at what he/the rest of the characters will do next,
and I can't wait to see the family start to form healthier relationship patterns.
(Systemic theory!! :'D Sigh they're so dysfunctional.)
AND, A BIGBIG PLUS: Sho is actually good. \o/
He needs to take on roles like this/Kamiyama more often. <3


Sennyu Tantei Tokage (ep1):
The acting in this is nothing to crow about
(should've known, really; Shota is a far better comedic actor than he is a dramatic one -
though I WAS hoping for more humour in this than there actually was, so. DD:).
Neither are the characters
(crossing my fingers that Mochizuki gets less annoying as the show wears on -.-).
The red herrings were pretty clumsy too.
What saved the ep, imho, were the chase/showdown scenes
(which were pretty heart-thumpingly awesome:
Shota slides down a laundry chute! Shota leaps down a stairwell and dents a car!
No, I'm serious. They were exciting. :D
Though the writers clearly don't shy away from unexpected injuries/deaths. ><).
I liked the twisty little reveal at the end, too, about Tokage's nickname
(maybe it's just me being 迟钝, lol, but I HADN'T GUESSED OKAY.
Gives things a whole new dimension - I want that backstory nowww.).


B is the sweetest proj supervisor, haha
(hands me back my report with REAMS of penciled comments
and insists 'it's very good already' WHEN NOOO IT'S NOT LMAO. I KNOW MYSELF.) -
AND I HAVE SO MANY CHANGES TO MAKE,
idek where to start. :(((
(Also: lol @ the fact that she pointed out over-hyphenation as my biggest stylistic flaw...
obviously it is high time to correct the habit. xD)
And there's revision, and job apps, and.
SIGH.
TOMORROW.
SOON. SOON.
BLEARGH


-4Min's mini is so catchy (and so inappropriate for revision, goodness).
Officially blaming Domino's overabundance of violins. xD
And still hooked on Standing Egg and Roy Kim,
which makes for a strange playlist, to say the least.
-The new tracks off Shout to the Walls! (save 鼓動) were a bit of a letdown.
I need my good emotional~ jams :(
-SekaOwa's RPG is amazing stuff (and Fukase is adorbs in the PV ;;).


The Popcorn con gives me a tremendous amount of feels.
Need to do a recap soon to get them out of my system.
(Ohno's Cosmos choreo is everything. And Juntoshi! And Two! And Energy Song!
+ it helps that the album songs are fantastic.)

Lmao it's like I'm on a quest to singlehandedly destroy my grades.
WOW, YOU SCREW-UP


On nicer things,
SAKANACTION FEELS THIS MORNING~
Was saving the album for a better mood
and... just. ;____;
Jammingggg; it's all so THEM and ooh the hook of アルデバラン :D:D:D
Idk if the actual 映画 is better than the Conte version, hmmm.
And more songs should use that audio effect
that makes the music sound like it's coming from a nearby speaker. *o*

Also, the PV to Mr.ECHO is gorgeous.
The song is pretty too (though not as grabs-you-and-doesn't-let-go-y as 夢１号)
but THAT PV ugh.


POPCORN DVD THAT IS ALL


DaeYOURARMSwhattheheck O.O
Jongup lololol aww. Never change, kid. <3