Peter's Japan blog

So I went to Ayumi's concert on the 9th & 10th of May in Yokohama, and there were of course new ayupans to buy. This time there were only 2 new: one from the Secret album cover and one in collaboration with Hello Kitty.

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Moved this blog back to the front.
To read more about my trip to Japan, see the other blog here: http://blog.jpopdb.org/index.php?blog=8

Choose the "Japan 2007" category in the menu on the left.

A long title for this semi-historical epic anime. It combines some historical and fictional characters and events that takes place during the Bakumatsu period in the last years of the shogunate and the first years of the Meiji Restauration.
The story goes about a mysterious samurai, Akizuki Youjirou, who wields a legendary sword and who has a special destiny to stop an rising super-natural evil which could change the course of history. He comes across a traveling kabuki theatre group headed by Yuyama Kakunojou. The actors seek revenge for the man who killed their parents. Akizuki travels somewhat alongside them. They are also followed by an intelligent playwright Ibaragi Soutetsu, but has some mysterious motives.

I just ended watching the whole series and I must say it is a very good one. It has drama and beautiful historic scenes that give a very good impression of how Japan was in the 1850-60s. It gives many references to historical battles and persons. The characters are very good and you really start to like them, and they are portrayed very well.
The story itself takes a bit long to develop though and gets quite complicated, and there are many names to remember.
The soundtrack is just awesome, this is not your simple midi-keyboard. The complete soundtrack is done by an orchestra also using some typical japanese instruments, which gives the music a very japanese style. Also the melody is very typical japanese and it is really able to create the perfect mood. Also the OP theme is wonderful.

My rating:
Animation: 8
Characters: 9
Sound: 10
Story: 7
Overal: 8

If you like semi-historical drama with some super-natural, this is certainly something for you. And the soundtrack really makes up for some of the negative points.

Some pictures:

The opening title:
YouTube

After some searches through different kinds of music, I (re-)found a few interesting artists:

Scott Walker:
Found him through a documentary I saw on the plane back from Japan. He was a '70 idol, whose music transformed into a very experimental and avant-garde genre.

La Bionda:
I had a record of them from my father, and downloaded that album again (entitled La Bionda). It contains a well known Italo-disco hit "One For You, One For Me". But also some darker songs like "Hey Woman" and "Sandstorm".

Black Devil:
They only released one EP, but it's one hell of an EP. In 1978(!), they released the "Disco Club EP", which would become one of the earliest real synth albums. Quote from wikipedia: " It was made manually in a recording studio in the suburbs of Paris using synths and occasional tape loops and a drummer. No midi or computers.". It has a very futuristic sound, for that time, and has had many influence on future artists.

I'm learning Japanese and I want to try to go for the JLPT Level 4 test in December. JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
I've already progressed to the point where I can read hiragana and katakana and a few kanji. This combined with some vocabulary as well. But I still have a long way to go for JLPT Level 4 (which is the lowest level). Level 4 requires you to know hiragana, katakana, about 100 kanji, about 700 words and basic grammar.

So while I'm learning, I might as well post some of it on my blog about the Japanese language, which has its simple and complex sides.

Just got back 4 hours ago, and I'm tired and exhausted. I got up this morning at 6h30, and it's now 23h (but those 6h30 was a 7 hour time difference), so I'm almost 24 hours awake (as I just can't sleep on a plane). Got unpacked, but most of the stuff is still on the floor. I'll need to make a list of all the things I bought ;p

Ayumi Hamasaki:
Asia Tour 2007 Light Fan
Asia Tour 2007 T-Shirt
Asia Tour 2007 Muffler
Asia Tour 2007 Towel
Asia Tour 2007 Tour Book
Asia Tour 2007 Ayupan (with Hello Kitty) x2
Asia Tour 2007 Ayupan (from Secret album) x2
Asia Tour 2007 Ayupan phonestrap x2
Asia Tour 2007 Tour Logo phonestrap x2
Asia Tour 2007 Shopping Bag
Asia Tour 2007 Cookies (yeah ;p)

A Museum '30th single anniversary' dvd

Manga (in japanese, with furigana):
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu 1, 2 & 3
Lucky Star 1 & 2 (both without furigana :-( )
Death Note 1 & 2
Suzumiya Haruhi meets Lucky Star doujinshi

Anime-related:
Voicha Magazine Vol. 2 (+ poster)
Ichigo Mashimaro Art Book (YouTube how can you not love these girls?)
Heroine Magazine May 2007
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu - Hare Hare Yukai (7" record!)
Toyota Corolla '86 "AE86" - Sprinter Trueno Model
some popular doujinshi fighting game at the moment (don't know title yet)

Other:
the Gazette - NIL (cd album)

And yes, I still had money left! ;p Quite a lot in fact. And I can only buy this much I can stuff into my luggage. But now I'm off to sleep...

Wanted to be early out of bed to get back to Tokyo as quickly as possible. I don't like Osaka very much. It might be the less dense transportation system, might be the neighbourhood my hotel was in (it was kinda crowded with homeless people,not that it was dangerous,but it's not nice). So I might have seen the wrong places of Osaka, but I found it a bit chaotic (although that might sound strange as Tokyo is bigger and more people in it). But I'm just so in love with Tokyo. Even my one-day visit to Kyoto was not to my liking. But I really only saw a small portion of Kyoto, so I can't really judge on that.
Anyway, I got back in Tokyo by 11h30, dropped by luggage in a coin locker and went straight to Akihabara to get rid of some money :D. Although that by the time I was finished, I didn't spend more than 8000yen (of the 64000 that I still had...). I think it's mainly because I'm on vacation and I can only put that much stuff in my bags than I can, and it has to go on a plane, so the stuff I can buy is limited. So no figurines, no games, no dvds (as there are no english subtitles), i'm also not really a anime music buyer unless it's very good. So that leaves us with manga (which actually is all in japanese, but since I'm learning japanese it might actually be helpful, especially if text is in furigana (kanji with hiragana next to them), so I can also read the kanji by using the hiragana next to them. And not everything is in kanji, half of the text is in hiragana, so this is also a very good exercise for reading hiragana (and kanji, and to a lesser extent katakana). And besides that, a few magazines (which I only buy for the pictures, and I can only read the katakana and hiragana, the kanji is still impossible). (And I'm still thinking about buying a Nintendo DS though as they are cheaper here...)
Oh, and they predicted 100% chance of rain today, and it did start to rain a little bit before noon, but not too much. But when I was in Akihabara around 13h30, it started to rain heavily, up to the point that it was pouring out of the sky. But by 14h it started to lessen, and by 14h30 the rain was completely over, and it didn't rain any more for the rest of the day.
Went to eat some ramen again (I'm really getting addicted to this stuff, but maybe because it's simple and something that I know what it is, and the rest is still unknown territory). Then went to my hotel to check in (the same as 5 days ago), but I was now on the 5th floor (4th for people in europe). Gonna sleep in a normal bed again, and have a toilet/bathroom in my room.
So now, I'm gonna try to get everything in my bags so that everything gets safely back to Belgium, and then get into bed to get up early to get to the airport (which is still an hour by train). But the advantage is, that I'm 15min on foot from Ueno Station (JR & Keisei), and all trains to the airport come through Ueno. So I don't have to take 1 or 2 subways/trains to get to Ueno Station, and this also saves time.

Pouring rain in Akihabara:

A bit late, but this was my room in Osaka:

When you go to Japan, it is a must that you take the Shinkansen at least 1 time. This train is comfortable like business class and very fast too. People from Europe can compare it with the TGV/Eurostar/Thalys, but the Shinkansens look cooler ;p.
But I've really begun to admire the amazing feats that the Japanese have done for the Shinkansen lines. Yesterday I followed the San-yo Shinkansen line from Osaka to Hakata (from central Japan to West-Japan) on Google Earth and I was totally amazed. The first Shinkansen line was made from Tokyo to Osaka in the 1960s (the Tokaido Shinkansen), but the the extension to Hakata came in the early 1970s.
The route from Tokyo to Osaka doesn't have many mountains so they took the shortest route along major cities. Already on this route many of the tracks for the Shinkansen are laid on bridges, over land, water and cities. (the Japanese really know how to build bridges, as they really build almost every train line on bridges or underground).
But the route for the San-yo Shinkansen to Hakata is truly amazing. They litterally took the shortest route between major cities along the way while also avoiding putting track in dense residential areas. But this route means going through many many mountains, as this part of Japan has quite a lot of mountains. This means building many long tunnels and more bridges in between. This must have been an engineers dream and hell to accomplish this extraordinary feat. Oh, and the route is about 600km long. The total route from Tokyo to Hakata is almost 1200km which can be done at the fastest in 5 hours using the Nozomi service, which stops at the least number of stations. But the Nozomi is of course the most expensive one, and not covered by the Japan Rail Pass. They can only take the Hikari or Kodama (which stops in every station) service. Only the Nozomi does the whole route from Tokyo to Hakata without transfer to another service.

A "300 Series" and a "700 Series" Shinkansen at Tokyo Station (picture taken from wikipedia):