Hi, welcoming myself back! This 2nd post is quite recent from my 1st post but nevertheless, here am I again! I need some time to complete Dragon Age : Origins, Uncharted 2 and some other console games, so in the meantime, might as well vary my post a LITTLE!

Today I wanna discuss a bit about some J-Pop musics which I am very hooked to for the past 1 month and would sincerely love to recommend/share them with u guys! Do note, music is a very subjective issue, what I feel is good MIGHT NOT necessary apply to everyone, feel free to also express your personal opinions or recommendations!

November 2009 Personal Oricon Chart : (J-Pop/J-Rock only!)
4.) 届けたい feat. KEN THE 390 - Aoyama Thelma
5.) Physical Thing - Koda Kumi
6.) 流れ星 - Mika Nakashima
7.) Crying Rain -  Girugamesh
8.) X - Onitsuka Chihiro
9.) My Girl - Arashi
10.) Happiness - Aoyama Thelma

All right! Lets get the ball rolling!
As a site-note, tracks in red are my personal HOT favorites!

Album 1:

01 Intro

02 忘れないよ (映画「HACHI 約束の犬」日本語版主

03 Happiness

04 二人の約束の日

05 I'm Sorry

06 KEEP ON

07 素直になれなくて

08 届けたい… feat. KEN THE 390

09 Baby, I love you

10 LOOK

11 WANNA COME AGAIN feat. VERBAL(m-flo)

12 Cinderella Story (ブルボン「クラッシュルマンドシリーズ」CMソング)

01 忘れないよ

This 1st picture is Aoyama Thelma's most recent album entitled 'Emotions' which was released on 2009.09.09, while the 2nd picture is her most recent singles entitled '忘れないよ' released on 2009.08.05.

Aoyama Thelma's 'Emotions' album was what inspired me to write this post! It practically killed me, out of the 11 tracks, excluding 'Intro', I could easily pick ANY OUT and I bet u will <3 it! Ok, that sounds exaggerated but I really couldn't find any tracks that I personally don't enjoy!

 This are some of her tracks which I am extremely hooked to.

 11 WANNA COME AGAIN feat. VERBAL(m-flo)

Oh my god! This is a masterpiece of Aoyama Thelma and Verbal, from the playful and EXTREMELY CATCHY feel, this song kept me captivated from start to end and simply left me craving for more! This is part of the starting lyrics:


You will be pleasantly surprised when her playful voice transits into a very sweet voice when she reach the line 'OOH … konya wa futari de celebrate'! However to me, the best part is when Verbal starts his rap!

This my house you better take you shoes OFF

think I’m uchuujin, like I’m KYUTON

ONE-MAN-ARMY,V,it’s ME

I could rap FAST, sometimes I slowlyyyyyy… STEP

It’s my time to SHINE… to get my FEET WET

HIMITSU wa oshienai, datte SECRET

can’t STOP NOW… tsukame

till I have 10 ”O’s”… to the LEFT

of my decimals, DEWEY, that’s how we DO IT

when we DROP it zujou chuui

…m-flo

Shiranai nara juushou

Dakara act like you know

so let me walk away from it all

…let’s go

Mou wasureru yo

Hoka no dareka to

Deau chance wa arushi

This rap may not really make much sense but it FLOWS so well with the song. I love the part when Verbal stops his rap and Thelma continues it from 'so let me walk away from it all'! The gritty synth and the thumping beats are fun and as always, VERBAL provides a fun rap and everything just freaking sync so well! This part is SHEER HIP! Verbal + Thelma FTW!

Another praise-worthy song from Aoyama Thelma's 'Emotions' album. This time, Thelma (main vocal) worked with Ken who rapped in some parts of the track. I adsolutely loves the starting and it proved to be extremely catchy especially with the repetition of 'so baby tell me, cause I need you in my heart.'. I like the ups and downs of her voice from the bittersweet starting to the higher pitched chorus, meanwhile, Ken's long rap appeared about midway of the track, he has a light voice but it is VERY fitting in this song. The song was ended very well too at:

todoketai kono omoi wo dakedo kimi ha kiitekurenai deshou? nee doushite? aishiteru yo kono omoi ha mou todokanai kana?

while Thelma's ethereal 'so baby tell me, cause I need you in my heart' repeated in the background to the very end! Awesome!




Aww! I swear I would have bought her album if she had included all her music PVs :((

Singles 2:

01 流れ星

02 Memory(feat.DAISHI DANCE)

Arguably one of the better singles for Mika this year! A fairly famous artiste in Japan, Mika costarred with Aoi Miyazaki in the famous live-action movie Nana, based on the manga of the same name. The sequel was so successful that Nana 2 was released subsequently in late 2006. Many of her singles toppled the Oricon charts, this one would be no exception!

01 流れ星

Mika's killer song in this single.  流れ星 features a very sad melody where she sang about love/dream with reference to a Shooting Star! I like Mika's gentle voice and the overall feel of this song, it brings out an indescribable melancholy within me, just like a scene where 2 lovers walked away from each other, both in tears! I especially loved the part when she sang :

YOU STAY FOREVER
Nagareboshi ima kimi wa nani wo iou to shiteitano? Miageta sora tsunaida te onaji mirai wo mitsumeteitai

At some parts, her voice go low and there were barely any background music, however, when the chorus comes up, her voice goes up along with all the piano and club beats which really caught my attention. Overall, the melodramatic piano beats in the background along with Mika's vocals was what made this song unique and touching!

 02 Memory(feat.DAISHI DANCE)
The acostic version of this song was actually by DAISHI DANCE themselves, however, Mika beefed it up greatly with her vocals in this version and converted it into a J-Pop! I personally liked the mixture of piano and light drum beats in the background  which is truly upbeat and hip! Mika's impactful vocal in this song was perfect and it really gave me the feel as if the song itself was a memory of the past, which was the title itself!

I chanced onto another great singles by Mika Nakashima, this album was not particularly recent (12 Nov 2008) but it does have 2 solid and great songs! Moreover, ORION was also the theme song for a famous J-Drama 'Ryusei no Kizuna' which Mika herself played a minor role too.

01 ORION
A fairly slow and emotional song, ORION took me quite a well to like and appreciate it because there are not much highs and lows in it, remaining fairly monotonous throughout the whole song. But, this allowed Mika Nakashima to put a lot of emotions into her singing, furthermore, since the music itself isn’t all that sad, it does create a warm winter feeling. This song was indeed very suitable for 'Ryusei no Kizuna'!

02 FOCUS
I did not give ORION a very good review but why do I included this single into my post? Well, because FOCUS was the epic song that captivated me in this single and it is currently the number 1 song in my personal November 2009 'Oricon' chart! Please show more hype and FOCUS more on this song! FOCUS started off with a funky synth-based arrangement which is kinda retro and techno and soon transcended into a full-fledged J-Pop! This is one song which I loved from the start to the end, most songs have poor connectors who made the song sounded awful at a particularly part, FOCUS had none of it. The best part of this song is probably the epic chorus itself :


Frankly speaking, there were not much highs and lows in this song but the ethereal and futuristic feel of her vocal made up for it and I seriously like it! FOCUS is the kind of song that made me wanna sing along with it whenever I listen to it, songs that can make me sing along with it UNKNOWINGLY truly deserves a thumbs up from me. Up till now, I still couldn't comprehend why FOCUS wasn't the theme song for this single but nevertheless MY FOCUS IS ON YOU, Mika Nakashima!

Yo all, have been inactive all this while, not because I am very busy or what, just that it is not easy trying to compile a proper post to be honest, u know I hate 1-liner posts or posts without pictures AT ALL for some apparent reasons,  why not dedicate more time to do a proper one? 

As the titles suggests, holidays are already starting for me! (actually, it already started from the last day of promos). School was really the LAST thing on my mind right now, maths/sciences/pw, they no longer bother me, I got no interest in them, either. There's a time and place for everything, its holiday right now so u gotta feel the rythme inside! Let's go Baby!

Before I start off, I have got a small request.

Konami recently won a 'Best Japanese Game Company Photo' from Kotaku and I couldn't agree less! Seen here is Hideo Kojima (4th from right) and his team of developers. Seriously, if not for Kojima, I might have mistaken them as some HollyWood action blockbuster stars (Japanese cast of Heroes)! Please support Konami for their epic games, Rising/MGS PeaceWalker for all I care, anything that passed Kojima's quality check is guranteed awesome, its true! Ever since Metal Gear Solid 4, my impression of Hideo Kojima changed overnight. He further proved me wrong by speaking fluent English in E3-2009, directed 2 more MGS titles, remained loyal to Sony even when Square-Enix ported FFXIII, I couldn't show less respect to Hideo Kojima and Konami as a whole, this photo will just add on to their epic-ness! Konami, your're are total badass!

Black★RockShooter

I started to pay attention to Black★RockShooter when I first saw her awesome figurines online.

Subsequent research led to discovering that it is actually part of the Vocaloid series featuring Hatsune Miku, the famous virtual Idol singer.

Be noted! Black★RockShooter is NOT Hatsune Miku herself, although some wallpapers do show them together, they are actually separate characters.

Black★RockShooter is a series of drawings consisting of weapon-wielding girls with ominous glowing eyes. I watched a short pilot version of Black★RockShooter and I must say I likes Huke's artworks ALOT, this animation is very action-oriented with an ever expanding tempest of mystery and secrecy around the protagonist, besides, its very fresh too in my opinion instead of the usual shojo animes with the typical storylines. Your should give it a try!

So hooked am I, that I even made a wallpaper of Black★RockShooter!


Seitokai no Ichizon


Another new anime I picked up recently and was very hooked to it! Too bad there's only 3 episodes currently (/sad).

This anime was actually a spin-off of 'The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi' and it can be briefly summarised as: 'The series, which is also called Hekiyō Gakuen Seito-kaigi Jiroku (The Records of the Hekiyō Academy Student Council’s Activities), revolves around a private high school whose student council is chosen entirely by popularity vote. Because of this, Ken Sugisaki is the only male representative, in the otherwise all bishōjo student council, that may enter the “sacred sanctuary” of the council’s meeting room. At the behest of Council President Kurimu Sakurano, Sugisaki records the minutes of the council meetings, which devolve into daily conversations about the students’ lives and interests.'.

To be honest, I watched it only because of the females, but come'on! What do u expect out of a romance/harem? Pretty much of a generic plot with the male protagonist being OVERLY obsessed with a 'Harem ending', with frequent light humors and VERY predictable outcomes. You may argue that the plot 'barely qualifies as one' and contents were dull and generic, but I personally liked the sense of humor among these students, pretty much can be considered as 'lame' but i think that thats the selling part of this series and the 'driving force' of the main plot. The character models and music were very note-worthy too. Definitely not the best anime, but none too shabby either! I personally liked it and its just the kind of fillers u'll need after a stressed out day!

Shakugan no Shana

This is another 'recent' anime I picked up, its not very new actually but its not that old either. I read all chapters online and about halfway through season 1 and I must say that I am pretty intrigued by the storyline, yes, its just a typical 'Save the world' Shojo plot, but different animes really bring out their plots differently and uniquely, Shakugan no Shana is no exception! I especially loved how Shana, initially being nonchalant and 'hateful' towards Yuji for the various troubles that he brought, started to actually develop a romance with him through a very reluctant and hard-hearted way! (Just like some Koreans dramas where the male and female lead develop feelings for each another UNKNOWINGLY when they were always bickering with each other!). I hope u managed to picture what I am trying to illustrate and I really loves this kind of romance as it is realistic and the feelings were mutual and genuine, sometimes, it can be very comical too!

In case u haven't realised, the wallpaper of this blog is actually Shana herself, nice render right?^^

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

Yes, finally to one of my all time favourite game series!

I will now briefly summarise the game's plot: A mysterious C.I.A agent called Sonia tried to contact Ryu Hayabusa (the main protagonist) and warned him about the 'Archfiend's revival' and that the Black Spider Clan was behind it. Subsequently, Genshin, leader of the Black Spider clan, broke into the Hayabusa village (which is home to the dragon lineage clan) and managed to stole a sacred dragon statue, a key item to the 'Archfiend's revival'. Ryu Hayabusa thus sets in a quest of vengeance to hunt down Genshin and retrieve his village's heirloom.

To be honest, the plot is just nonsensical and incredibly dull, the plot was almost EXACTLY the same as the first game and both featured one-note characters that lack any type of personality. Sure, Ryu is a super bad-ass, but he has the charisma of a cardboard box. There was practically no depth to the character's personality AT ALL, even to side characters like Sonia (god, why does she even exist? She did absolutely NOTHING in this game!), Rachel, Ayane or even Kasumi?! (z0mg what was Tecmo thinking...)

Ultimately, storyline is just a small aspect of this game and we cannot judge it purely from the story developments.

The graphics are quality with rich environments, featuring well detailed character models with strong colours and textures.

The music too, are very note-worthy, especially those played in the midst of boss battles that cause your adrenaline to shoot up! Appropriate and solid are the musics.

I will not go into detail for the 2 aspects above as Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2's biggest strength lies in its gameplay. Gameplay was VERY SMOOTH with absolutely no frame-rate issues which is very important for a fast-paced action game like this. Controls are tight and responsive too, which is another ++ as this game relies heavily on the user's timely and swift inputs. The battle system was deep and fun as hell! It forces u to think of various appropriate strategies for various enemies and bosses encounters, which makes it very challenging and insightful instead of the usual HacknSlash games. The combat system is so swift and fluid to the extent that, I really felt like a REAL NINJA while playing this game, well done Tecmo, for giving me such a surrealistic experience!

Skills and movesets wise, check out Ryu's Ultimate Techniques on Youtube, the animations are RIDICULOUSLY COOL and awesome, the boss battles are equally engaging and fun. I attached 3 gameplay videos here, done by Reim - The master ninja. The first one is a gameplay video and the second/third one are epic boss rapes.

Ninja Gaiden 2 gameplay videos :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32Ka2qjd35Q (Chapter 1 gameplay)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLGQdT3FWCQ (Chapter 16 Alexei boss battle)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQClnpxOCd4 (Chapter 12 Dragon rape!)

Lastly, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 introduced 'Online co-op team missions'. Yes, u can play online with your friends! A never existed feature in any action games had actually surfaced on this game, a brave and wise decision I must admit. As I mentioned in almost all my previous post, online mode adds TONS of replay value to any game, being able to team up with a Human player is indeed fun and rewarding to a large extent. What's more, you can flaunt your Ninja skills online and compete with other players on the leaderboard to show who is Teh Real Masta Ninjaz! Although there are some lag/letency issues online, most missions I played were smooth for the majority and I believe this would improve over the course of time. Good job, Team Ninja and Tecmo!

Some epic Ninja Gaiden sigma artworks to share with your.


Omg! I loves Momiji's Dynasty Warrior costume, she looks like a goddess and her eyes were just plain sexy!


Same goes for Ayane's dynasty warrior costume. Her coolness and swiftness is almost on par with Ryu's! D.O.A's top tier char indeed!

This is Rachel's normal costume.

Rachel's dynasty warrior costume! Surprisingly, she look gentler here but do not be fooled! Her strength is the highest among the 3 girls and on par with Ryu to the extent that she could have started a game herself! Behold Rachel, the demon hunter!

Ryu Hayabusa's normal costume.

Ryu Hayabusa's dynasty warrior costume! This is the definition of Knight in Shining Armour!

Blade of the Archfiend! Ryu, please be gentler!

On a side-note, I had just completed on Master Ninja Mode (congratulate me!), got it on first day which happened to be the last day of my promo exam and had been thoroughly enjoying from day 1, till now, I am still playing online and no damage runs. I strongly advise all to try out this game if u are an avid fan of the action genre!

Borderlands

Another game I picked up recently, u will be shocked to hear this : This game is currently the top game for Pc/Xbox360/Ps3!

Whats up with the hype? U might wonder... Until recent, a new genre of game had been created called the 'FPS-RPG', it is a combination of the First person shooter and Role Playing game genre. Wonder whats it like? Just picture a game like counter strike with you on the First person view and holding a gun with a crosshair in the center of your screen, except that now, u can level up your character, add new skills e.g. summon hawks, windwalk etc...With every level, u gain more powerful skills/guns/armours to tackle stronger adversaries. Does that sound appealing? I bet it does! This genre of game caters to all the FPS fanatics (which is EXTREMELY HUGE) and the RPG fanatics (which is equally huge), so expect it to have a crazy community.


Before you start your adventure, you'll be introduced to four playable characters that all have unique skills and weapons preferences: Roland (Soldier), Lilith (Siren), Mordecai (Hunter), and Brick (Berserker). You can augment your character/class however you like via the Skill Tree to suit your play style. You can also adjust the control schemes from the menu to better adjust your play style as well. Once you've figured out who you'd like to take into the world of Pandora, it's time to look for the Vault (a treasure).

I will briefly do a short review on this game with some personal comments.

Story:
Rarely has a shooter game been blessed with a quality storyline, Borderlands being a FPS-RPG, enjoyed a RPG's fantasy storyline to score well for this section. I personally found the storyline enticing, its not too far-fetched and ridiculous with many RANDOM elements just a fairy tale, at least, it is realistic and logical, just the kind of destiny that awaits u when u were trapped in a wasteland yourself!

Graphics:
Borderlands uses the Unreal Engine for its graphics engine, but it does not look like an Unreal Engine game at all. It has a unique art style that some may even call cel-shading, or a pastel sort of look. It truly is an eye-catching game and the world of Pandora comes to life with vibrant colors and with an attitude. Though this attitude can some times get a bit hectic, so at times the frame rate will drop slightly in the heat of the action. If you were able to appreciate such games as Okami and the new Prince of Persia, this game will tickle your retinas. Excellent draw distance and attention to detail, I've seen no evidence of jaggies or pop-ups anywhere. Even in the heat of the most crowded battles this game runs at a solid framerate. PERFECT!

Sound:
The soundtrack is quite appropriate. It kicks up a powerful orchestra during boss battles and even heavy day-to-day action when you're being swarmed by bandits or scags. It can be rather poignant at times while exploring the landscape but its always appropriate, Gearbox did a great job making your adversaries sound like they are really out for your blood!

Gameplay:
This is where this game truly shines. Everything about its mechanics are very challenging and intuitive. One big strength lies in the excitement of finding high-level weapons and the sheer joy of leveling up to find out what certain weapons do. You'll be scrounging scrap yards, run-down locales, and other places for prospective weapons and mods, eagerly anticipating how a weapon will fire. Gearbox implemented a random weapon generator in Borderlands which literally pumps out millions of weapons, all being varied. This is where the addiction starts to set in, always wanting to find that one interesting weapon to try out. Some weapons have amazing visual effects, from lightning to fire, or just straight up explosive prowess. The skills are just as rewarding when u watch your hawk tore up more foes than your guns, some skills boost bullet penetration rate, critical rate enhancements, double damage chance, allowing u to try out various funky builds to eliminate your foes.

Lasting appeals:
There's plenty of quests, guns, items, exploration, and multiplayer both online and offline enough to keep one occupied throughout the playthrough. Borderlands features offline split-screen co-op, as well as online co-op with up to three other players and yourself. Playing alone in Pandora can be a bit quiet and boring since there isn't much life to world, but if you've got three people you can trust to play with you, and ones who definitely won't ninja your loot, then you're in for a great online experience...You can start up quests from bounty boards posted across various outposts, or you can just roam Pandora and loot, loot, loot!

Overall, Borderlands is a fun, addictive game that is very accessible to fans of loot-based systems (a la Diablo), fans of first-person shooters, and fans of RPGs. Two great genres in one loot-packed adventure that can last you easily over 50 hours or more. There's something here for every one to enjoy, from the interesting and surprising characters, to the millions and millions of weapons you can try out -- you can't go wrong with Borderlands!

Final Fantasy XIII

God, how can I do a post without Final Fantasy XIII, my all time most hyped game since 2006! Seen here is very likely, the finalised box-art for this Christmas' Japanese release date! Would I be holding this in March 2010? Hope so!

I had probably updated on FFXIII more than enough times throughout my various posts. Trust me, this will be one the last before the release date!

This is Oerba Yun Fang, the 6th member of FFXIII's playable cast among with Lightning, Snow Villers, Oerba Dia Vanille, Hope Esthiem and Sazh Katzroy. Tell me, how does Fang look like a male?!? Ever since Square Enix's claim that 'Fang was originally designed to be male', forums threads to bash Fang's character design had been spreading like wildfires. No matter which angle I looked at her from, she looked perfectly feminine to me, just the typical kind of Shojo females or even Blockbuster kickass females! I personally like her character design and it really added more depth to FFXIII as a whole with the various distinct character models.

Back to topic, Fang will be a spear-wielding Dragoon! OMG! I haven't seen a dragoon class since FFIX (My favorite character being the female dragoon, Freya, with her awesome physical damage output and cool dragon skills!). Whats more, guess what, Fang's summon is none other than the Dragon king, Bahamut (Z0MGWTFBBQ!). Being physically strong with cool Dragoon skill sets, Fang will definitely be in my party for sure, Lightning, be careful of being overshadowed by Fang!

Bayonetta

This is probably one of the next few games I am getting, Bayonetta! Directed by Kamiya, the director of the Devil May Cry series, expect the same kind of battle system! Unfortunately, there is very little news of this game yet and I was in a dilemma whether or not to buy the JP imported version or to wait for the U.S launch which could be several more months down...

To be honest, I was really very hyped for this game from the various gameplay trailers online which I awed at, however, a recent Ps3-Xbox360 gameplay side by side comparisons of Bayonetta had proved that the Ps3 version suffered low-resolution and dull textures, together with choppy framerates at times (Gasps!) while the Xbox360 version suffered none of this. I am not lamenting that Xbox360 got the better version but the fact that Sega had done a crappy porting job is pretty disappointing. Nevertheless, many users had commented that the game itself remains fully playable despite these drawbacks, hopefully, Sega would address these issues in the later U.S version.

Bayonetta is truly a unique game, seldom had action games of such caliber been released (even Ninja Gaiden do not come close in this aspect), featuring such DEEP and FLASHY movesets are really an eye opener for everyone. Together with the beautiful virtual world and character/concept arts.

Aion online

Finally, I am hereby calling anyone interested to start Aion online together with me! Its not a FREE MMORPG, u do have to purchase the cd-key with monthly surcharges, as a avid MMORPG gamer myself, I can assure u that paid services are REALLY WORTH IT due to the better servers and gameplay balances and customer services. Do drop me a note if u are really interested!

I had come to the end of this post, hope u all had a good read! Leave some comments too!