Wonder-Momo-i DVD and Mami Kawada's SEED out today.

Well Momoi's DVD is finally out. Let's see if I preordered early enough to get in on the limited extras or not. There's not much new to report yet that I haven't already said in my previous anticipation posts, but in the coming days I will be scouring the blogs of Japanese fans who bought it for some reactions and information.

Regarding today's second significant artist release: Mami Kawada is the second I'VE singer to to catch a big break, having signed on with Geneon last year and released several singles. Her first album, Seed, came out today. I unfortunately did not know about this album release soon enough to have packed it together with my Wonder Momo-i DVD which shipped this morning. Earlier in the month, Mami also announced her first Live Tour in Japan which will begin in May. Advance tickets were made available through ThreeNine.

Posted by Paranda at 11:32 PM | Comments (4)

A mystery is solved...

If you've ever watched any Halko concerts, you may have wondered at some point how the hell the audience is so well coordinated with their movements and chants - I know I certainly did. You may have wondered what the differences between concert versions of songs were, or maybe wanted to know the exact words the fans always sang during the opening of Ichigo Go! Go!

The UNDER17 Live Tour, Soshite Densetsu he...in Yokohama Blitz Commemoration Booklet explains it all. Probably the most comprehensive UNDER17 Live event guide ever compiled, this 68 page manual contains extremely detailed information about every live UNDER17 song performance, including lyrics, chanting instructions, clapping instructions, and other fun information, possibly assembled from flyers distributed during concert.

Since it is now in my possession, I used my lunch break at school today to scan the entire thing. Thanks to this book, the next time you hear Ichigo Go! Go!, you too can sing

"Moe moe songu ni misararete, Haruko no toriko ni narimashita! 'Ichigo Ichie' ha ichidokiri, minna de sakebou GoGo! GO!"

I bet it'll impress someone...or make you look like a huge nerd.

My apologies in advance for the terrible quality of the first few pages, as it was my first time scanning anything so I didn't start laying it out properly until I got used to the machine. With some 68 pages, I barely finished within the hour I had, with no time to rescan the bad ones. But hey, if you want a good copy, buy the book if you can. If you can get it for under 3000yen, It's worth it. Really!

Posted by Paranda at 10:08 PM

More stuff has arrived.

My Halko Momoi purchases this month include UNDER17 Meets Witch vol. 1 & 2, URA ANSEB backstage disc, Yokohama Blitz concert goods (towel, wristbands, neon tube, keychain, booklet), Sealed Yokohama Blitz pamphlet package (I have no idea what's inside and I'm hesitant to rip open something that cannot be resealed), Kujibiki Unbalance B2 poster, and a B2-size poster of Komugi enlarged from an image that I think was in Voice NEWTYPE or Seiyuu GrandPrix. Still waiting on the new WONDER MOMO-I disc which is due out in 2 days. If you're wondering why the items are arranged like that, it's because the posters came rolled up and need weights on the sides to hold them down for now.

Update: I have opened the pamphlet package. Since I don't have a scanner, I just took some crappy pictures of the pages, which I have put into this rar archive.

Posted by Paranda at 11:39 AM

Dammit! (desu)

I backordered this damn thing JANUARY 4TH! It still failed! Argh, Suiseiseki I have failed you as a fan. ;_;

In other news, Tetris DS is pretty fun, especially with the new modes. Catch is my favorite so far, with a really cool concept of bringing a mass and connecting it to free floating tetris blocks. Mental and muscle memory from the old Tetris will not help much, and you have to concentrate pretty hard to get through the higher levels. I actually had cold sweats dodging metroids for dear life.

So far, marathon mode is my least favorite, as it gets impossibly hard, fast. I figured I would have no problem in traditional Tetris, as I've been playing Tetris for so many years now on my graphing calculator it's like second nature, but marathon gets so mindblowingly fast it's not even funny - as in instant tetromino drop without even a moment to step left or right. Past 150 lines, the game becomes an exercise in "LOL PRESS ROTATE REALLY FAST AND PRAY YOU DON'T GET THE O BLOCK." All those years of Tetris skill cannot be applied to a mode like this where actual strategizing and reaction speed take a back seat to thumb endurance. I got bored and died at around 600 lines and haven't tried again since.

As for Metroid, I'm taking a brief break after playing for nearly three days straight on multiplayer. I hear the single player is engaging as well, but I dislike FPS single player modes in general, as I have terrible sense of direction and any map beyond the size of typical closed multiplayer arenas will confuse me (I avoid hedge mazes in real life too because I'd probably die in one).

Finally, my final announcement today - I may be ordering the Habanero-tan plant and figure set found here. However, importing is quite expensive on a small scale like this, so I will be paying around $45 for a 2100yen item. As much as I love Habanero and would be willing to pay through the nose for her, a 100%+ markup seems just a tad unreasonable and will probably result in a massive case of buyer's remorse soon after if I were to go through with it. So, I make this proposal: if anyone would like to order one as well, perhaps we can pool our orders together and save some cash on commission and shipping. They are taking up to three orders per person, so I can arrange deals with two people. Contact me if you live in the continental US and are interested: paranda@paranda.net

Update (March 26): I have one person with me on this deal, so there is only one slot left. I will order by April 1st.
Update (March 30): 3 slots have been filled. Ordered.

Posted by Paranda at 2:20 AM | Comments (0)

おめでとう私.

Posted by Paranda at 12:14 AM | Comments (1)

March is a good month for WiFi

My schedule is packed again, now that spring break is over. Not because of class, but because Metroid and Tetris have both been released this week for DS. Both games offer wifi play and are highly addicting. Metroid especially amazes me with how good it looks on this tiny screen. If you want an easy match against someone who has historically sucked at every FPS, I'm always up for a game: 1632 7633 7039.

My only complaint is Metroid's playing style with the stylus can get VERY uncomfortable, causing great pain to the hand after what can only be considered short playing sessions. I mean just take a look at these before and after images of the damage from 10 seconds of play:

Posted by Paranda at 7:20 PM

Progress update: Momoi Product List

Got about 100 entries so far and still workin on it. I will convert this spreadsheet to HTML and post it once I have roughly have double this amount. I may also store this into MS Access at some point depending on how huge this gets.The hardest part was finding the product keys for most of these. There is a lot left to be done, including more merchandise, many unsold/unlisted products, and separate listings for bundled items.I also need to add my notes to everything. As far as anime listings go, currently I have only listed the three series where Halko has been considered a main character: Majokko Tsukune-chan, Komugi, and Popotan. If I were to include smaller roles such as her membership in the trio Chikarinzu from Ai Yori Aoshi, or her role as Maya from Ragnarok, I'd probably die from exhaustion although I may consider it after I finish the other stuff. Since there is no master list for me to match this against, there may be errors. Message me if you see any.

Posted by Paranda at 1:27 PM | Comments (0)

More WONDER MOMO-I Live Tour Final Release Details

Some more details about the March 29th release of WONDER MOMO-i have been released by Columbia Entertainment.

The full name of the release will be WONDER MOMO-I Live Tour Final [With Backstage]. The full item key is COBC-4519-20 and will cost 5500 yen afer tax. There are some changes compared to the Wonder Momoi Express disc produced by Nakid that came out earlier. Here is the new updated cover compared side by side with the old one:

Like the Express DVD, there will be two discs. On this release though, here will also an additional "Momoi commentary" audio track, and bonus Backstage scenes included with the second disc. For the limited first press edition, you will also receive the DVDs in a special collector's box. A poster may or may not be included, but I am unsure at this point in time (it is not listed on the Columbia page but I hear some talk about it). Here is a handwritten message by Momoi about her DVD release.

Again, this is NOT the same as the Express version. If you've preorded from CDJapan, do not fear. They are using the outdated "Express" name, but the item key is correct so it will be the same product.

Posted by Paranda at 8:43 PM | Comments (1)

Brief review of four Japanese import middleman services.

Akibado
Commission: Variable. http://www.akibado.com/auction.html
Pros: Offer personal import service in addition to auction. Best commission prices. Automated order and shipping status checking.
Cons: Mysterious nonresponse times. Often overloaded with too many customers, which means you have a higher chance of getting screwed.

Celga
Commission: Flat $10 per 10,000 yen increase. http://www.celga.com/fee.html
Pros: They have somebody working all shifts. Very rapid response time, plus fluent english speaking representatives. They will time your order to place your bid during the final few hours. You can also create your own account to bid with.
Cons: No automated request or shipping system. You have to send emails to place orders or check if your items have arrived. They like to round up costs and not explain why or how they are derived.

Crescent-Shop
Commission: 12.5% http://www.crescent-shop.com/index08.html
Pros: Offers import service in addition to auction. Will provide free translation and is very good about explaining store policies and procedures you may not understand.
Cons: Will not strategically time your bids (places them right away). Slower response times. Seems to be run by one guy, so he's obviously not going to be available at all times.

Rinkya
Commision: 15$ base plus 1$ per 1000 yen. http://www.rinkya.com/bid.php
Pros: You're on your own to make bids.
Cons: You're on your own to make bids. High base commission makes bidding on small things costly.

Remember the following:
Exercise caution and common sense - just like you would on Ebay or anywhere else. Translate pages, or get someone to translate them for you.

If you bid your max at a "buy it now" price, most places will just bid the max for you right away and close the deal - so if you want to get it below the buy it now price, bid below it.

Some sites use yen commission, some sites use dollar commission. Take the exchange rate into account to get the best deal on this.

Posted by Paranda at 1:54 PM | Comments (0)

Suddenly, I realize I have migrated to the Elise camp.

HOW ON EARTH DID THIS HAPPEN? I THOUGHT I WAS PRO KIRI!?!?!? I DON'T UNDERSTAND MYSELF!

edit: post-2hour-calm-down-period-analysis: Color me shocked - Canvas 2, the series based on a goddamn porno game, has surprisingly good character development. I have actually turned against Kiri - her behavior these past few episodes has been childish and at times downright disgusting. She's really self-serving actually. And this wasn't a sudden turn that goes against all she's done previously either, in fact it was more like a bit by bit revelation that puts all of her actions in the past into a new perspective. Kiri is absolutely terrible and definitely the kind of girl who would charm her prey with her feminine wiles but pull a nasty 180 once she's enslaved him through marriage. If Hiroki goes this route, he's going to regret it at age 30. Elise on the other hand, has matured considerably since the first half of the series and is showing more aspects of her personality and worries. I think I can overlook this cousin incest now because she's really the better person when it comes down to it. Heck at this point, I'd rather have Kana win than Kiri.

Posted by Paranda at 3:45 AM | Comments (0)

GURAGURA on Youtube

Youtube is actually getting pretty popular these days, probably even more than Google Video, and it seems to have every jpop related thing on there, including some UNDER17 videos. Well not to be scooped by other fans, I finally decided to make an account and upload one of my favorite Momoi music videos of all time - GURAGURA! A classic!

Youtube lets you hotlink their videos with some code, but I hate it when people embed huge media files into their blogs, so I am just going to direct you to the URL here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUItbhTV418.

Go watch it. It's really cute! Especially if you want to see Momoi break out dance moves. Powerglove <3. It gets pretty out of sync though with the audio lagging behind the video by about 3 seconds, probably because Youtube couldn't handle the weird codec but the video is sufficiently large that I do not want to host it on my own server. So let this act as a screener: interested parties message me for a source.

(And yes, I am working on that value appraisal list. Taking a bit more time than I anticipated but should be up in a while)

Posted by Paranda at 5:51 PM

Database professor enjoys overhyping midterm.

It was speculated that the midterm would be cover a vast arrangement of highly complex topics with a generous curve to make up for the extreme difficulty. Naturally, with everyone's current grade roughly the same due to a lack of homeworks and projects, we all hoped to beat the curve by studying ourselves to death. I was one of the victims of this professors's trap. In the past week I have sufferred several minor concussions as a result of frustrating over impossible to understand material, using vaguely worded 400 page powerpoint slideshows as my study guide.

So while I'm shitting bricks the previous nights over 6 forms of normalization, bag theory, 8000 ways in SQL to get the max value without using the MAX() function, and Boyce-Codd theory of shoving large objects up my ass (these were all mentioned as important topics that will show up on the midterm), it turns out the actual test basically asked questions on the level of "{1, 2, 3} is a set. Yes[ ] No [ ]"

Uh...

In other news, my black ER-6i's arrived today - a great way to start spring break. Sound quality is pretty nice. Definitely blocks out a lot of sound which will allow me to lower the volume on bus rides and buy my eardrums a few extra years of functionality. Hopefully. My only complaint is they feel so fragile I'm afraid to even sneeze while wearing them. I'm undecided on comfort yet.. I'll need more time to break these in. I am pretty noobish when it comes to headphones though, hopefully these were the right choice.

Posted by Paranda at 10:06 PM | Comments (0)

Bargain hunting pays off big time

This arrived today. Goods are second hand, but in perfect condition and genuine.

Cost: 4000 yen + shipping
Retail: 10800 yen.

Pretty nice deal, thanks to a well timed and extremely lucky bid. I think I have been browsing the various online stores and auctions markets enough now to start making a value appraisal list that will hopefuly help other collectors determine what their Momoi merchandise is actually worth. Probably will be up Thursday night or Friday. But for now, the midterm cram must take priority.

Posted by Paranda at 5:48 PM

Firefox, wasting memory like there's no tomorrow.

Today I got a "System is low on virtual memory" warning for the first time ever on my laptop, which happens to have 2GB RAM. I was pretty shocked, since I didn't have much open. A trip to task manager reveals:

Uh ok. Wow Firefox decides it needs 1.2 GB of memory all to itself. All I had open was a small plain text page in a tab. Apparently, two days worth of past browsing managed to build up this much waste. Leave it to Firefox to have horrible memory leaks that have not been fixed for years. This disgusted me so much, I'm seriously considering switching to Opera or something else. Maybe even OMG Internet Explorer 7. Surely nothing can be as bad as this??

Posted by Paranda at 4:59 AM | Comments (1)