Moving to wordpress

After numerous fustrating experiences with blogger, I have decided to move to Wordpress. Here is my new blog, currently being hosted on wordpress. Maybe some time in the future I may get my own domain name, but for now this will have to do. I probably won't be posting on Blogger anymore.

Zheng Jie beats Ana Ivanovic

Wow, another massive upset in Wimbledon. First Djokovic then Sharapova now Ivanovic, the ranked number 1 player in the world. She got knocked out in straight sets by Zheng Jie from China, who's ranked like 131 or something.

I can just see the massive media spin that's going to happen in China over this. They'll probably gloss over the fact that the win was more due to Invanovic's poor performance recently than any spectacular skills from Zheng.

Kurenai 12

At last we come the end of this series. However, it ends not with intense action sequences, but rather, a showcase of highly sophisticated prepubescent intellect.

Fighting is so immature, let's settle our differences with a nice long talk

Summary
Taking off straight from last episode, Benika and Yayoi re-enter the Kuhouin estate after realise that Shinkurou took off on his own. They soon meet Lin, who I maintain is insane. To once again prove that she's insane, she smashes a hole in the driver side window of Benika's Maserati as it speeds past.

Power windows are for the weak

Soon, there is a Bond style car chase complete with knobs and lever that active hidden devices whose purpose remain just as hidden. As far as I saw, those levers and buttons may as well have being for the air conditioning, they didn't do anything!


Meanwhile, Shinkurou arrives in the inner sanctuary to be confronted by Renjou. Renjou tells Shinkurou to leave if he doesn't want to die, instead, Shinkurou rejects that idea saying he will listen to Murasaki's true feelings and act accordingly. Aww... love is wonderful isn't it? Before their conversation could continue, Benika and Lin mistook the inner sanctuary for a drive thru which resulted in Lin's car plowing through the wall and into a pond. Benika on the other hand, with her uber hax driving skillz, turns the house into a parking lot.

Thank god for air bags

Shinkurou and Benika then proceeded to Murasaki's room, meeting Ryuuji once again, while Yayoi stayed to have a re-rematch with Lin. How does Lin manage to finally beat the crazy Chinese chick that has thus far kicked her ass twice? Obviously by using the Houzuki style that she managed to learn from brief practice fight with Shinkurou. The Houzuki style is a fighting style with no stance, ie making stuff up as you go. Apparently, it is truly imba as Yayoi convincingly beat Lin and Shinkurou using the same style beat Ryuuji. Considering the easy at which they won, it's a real wonder why they didn't just start off with that style.


Anyway, Renjou and Kazuko arrive on the scene and begins the 10min long intellectual debate that will entertain us for the rest of the episode. In a nutshell, because I really can't be bothered elaborating, Murasaki decided to leave the inner sanctuary but not leave the Kuhouins. As she believes that leaving the Kuhouins would be the equivalent of running away from her problems, however, she will leave the inner sanctuary so she could see the world and possible find her true love. Ridiculously sophisticated and mature insight for a 7 year old; especially a 7 year old that has never seen the outside world until like 2 weeks ago.

The flame war is on: Murasaki vs Renjou

The massively long debate finally seems to get somewhere until Ryuuji abraptly pulls out a knife and stabs Benika.


This causes Shinkurou to go berserk and finally pull out some kick ass moves that we have all waited patiently for. It even lasted an entire 2 seconds before Benika prevented him for landing the final blow. I guess that's just one of the laws of anime, uber hax hardcore moves only appear when someone close to the main gets fatally wounded.

For someone who's suppose to be suffering from a fatal knife wound, she moves remarkably well

None of that made much difference as Renjou decided to accept Murasaki's demands and will allow her to gorw up as a Kuhouin women that doesn't live in the inner sanctuary. Before Shinkurou and Murasaki part their ways, he hands her a scarf by Yamie and a photo fromTamaki. Just so the ausidence know that they still exist.


The episode ends with Yayoi driving Benika to a hospital because the Kuhouins were too stingy to put up for an ambulance. The repair bill must have been ridiculous.

Omg you're going to get blood on the leather!

Meanwhile, Murasaki and Renjou spend some father daughter time... for the first time...

Impresssions
Well, coming off the action packed pace of last episode, I didn't expect this episode to have such lack of action. Over half of the episode was just heated discussion. But, when considering the rest of the series, it fits well with the overall pace and flow. The end really feels quite climatic even with the lack of action. Sunrise should really take some notes; you don't need a new 20 foot mecha that obliterates everything in its path to have dorema.

On the topic of Sunrise, Murasaki's decision stay in the Kuhouin family and try to change it from within sound exactly like Suzaku. Whilst I really hate Suzaku, but when the same ideals come from a 7 year old loli, I dont find it all that bad.

Anyway, as expect, this ending left many unanswered questions. It does offer the audience closure and I guess some sort of satisfactory ending. It also gives enough oen ends for a second series, which I'm not holding my breath for.

Screencaps
Considering over half of this episode was dialogue, there wasn't much for me to work with. T_T

Just so we know that they still exist

Just so we know that they still exist

Shouldn't have scamped on the traction control

Don't forget to flush

Don't touch my loli!

"We're sorry madam, you only payed us to kneel here."

This is why you don't send you're love messages to all

Tatami mats are not good driving surfaces

Zomg, between booze and bread, you go for the bread...

Kurenai 11

Naturally, the second last episode, means an increase in action, crazy evil laughs, and the heros getting their asses whoops so they can make a dramatic comeback in the last episode against all odds.


Summary
Continuing from last episode, Murasaki returns to the inner sanctuary, demoralised and very much brainwashed.


Shinkurou, Benika and Yayoi prepares to infiltrate the Kuhouin residence through some river entrance in the wall. They decided to use the same boat Benika used in two other occasion, first to take Murasaki out of the residence and the second time for Benika to enter the residence to have a midnight chat with Renjou.

Clearly not the best idea

We also learn that Benika's involvement with the Kuhouins went way back, and was probably a factor in Ryuuji's evilness.


Pretty soon, the get found by Lin and her henchmen, which is kinda retarded. If you were infiltrating such a massive estate, you'd think they would stay off the marked paths. Anyway a fight soon starts, which Benika and co should have won. All they had to do was defeat all of her henchmen and turn it into a three on one, but for reasons beyond me, Benika decided to take Shinkurou and jump off a cliff, leaving Yayoi to her fate with Lin.

As a result, Yayoi gets her ass kicked.

Kazuko and Ryuuji have a nice mother son talk. Topic of discussion? Murakasi, and how the reason for her rebellious attitude is her youth. Obviously the fact that when she turns thirteen she will be raped by her brother and forced to give birth to his child only to have that child taken from her and to be raised by some unknown woman has nothing to do with it.

When Shinkurou and Benika reached the inner sanctuary, they are confronted by Ryuuji guarding an emotionless Murasaki. When Shinkurou tells her to leave with him, she responds by saying that she has accepted her fate as a Kuhouin woman and will be staying in the inner sanctuary.


Before Shinkurou could try to convince her any further, he gets interrupted by Lin on a rampage for blood. Soon Shinkurou and Benika gets overpowered by Lin and Ryuuji.


Shinkurou was finally able to land a punch on Lin, even though it was only a slap. A moral victory nonetheless.


Things were looking grim for Benika and Shinkurou until the maid that helped Murasaki escape the estate made a suicidal charge at Lin, which enabled them to escape. Her death also resulted in the appearance of that bone. Even though it does pretty well against bullets, it seems to be useless in hand to hand combat.


Impression
As expected, this episode had a lot more action than than the rest of the series. However, I was surprised and grateful that it didn't feel rushed; it still retained the seriousness and somberness it had since the start. Nevertheless, the writers probably decided to leave much unexplained in order to ensure the ending was rushed and maintained a reasonable flow. I will be interested to see how Shinkurou will be able to overcome Lin as their encounters thus far has resulted in him spending more time on his back.

Screencaps

Nutrition is important when considering an infiltration plan

In anime, hypothermia does not exist

Also in anime, clothes dry in minutes

Still as crazy as ever

Kazuko's first ever attempt at cooking turns out... quite well

When infiltrating someone's house, always ask the door maid for permission

Paper walls - not the best defensive structure

Since Yayoi didn't land a single punch on her, those injuries must be self inflicted

Zomg, dirty footprints!

3 inch stilettos, footwear of choice in combat

Such incestuous brotherly love

Since the boat didn't work, let's try the car...

The con is on-line

I recently received a private message on the social networking site Tagged. Little did I know it will turn out into a carefully orchestrated con.


No, I don't actually use it. The fact the I even have an account is the, of an invite email from a friend and extreme boredom, which resulted in a few minutes spent making a profile. Of course, after not hearing a sound from it, I had completely forgotten that such a site existed in the first place. That is until some her I've never heard of PMed me looking for someone to chat to. As I was not doing anything strenuous at the time, I thought, why not.

After, the standard exchange of name, age, location, etc, I learnt that she was from California. Okay... considering that I'm from Sydney and the time was 11pm, and the time difference between Sydney and California is -17, that would have made it what? 5am there? She's either, up extremely late or extremely early.

She soon reveals that she is actually coming to Sydney to visit her cousin in the coming month. Okay now this is starting to get creepy, and she's beginning to sound a little fake to me. However, I stop from outright ignoring her on the bases that MAYBE she intentionally sought out a guy from Sydney hoping, to get some info to plan for her travels. Considering I had written my location on my profile, this was still plausible. But, doing that at 5am in the morning, was really pushing it.

Well, it was not long after, that the plot was reveal. She asks me if I have ever being to a "Strip Showdown" site and then directed me to a registration form to what looked like some porno site. WTF??!!! Now that's just too weird, what kind of girl tells a guy they met for like 15mins to register for porn? Also, I have some serious doubts about the authenticity of the site, the domain name seems to redirect me somewhere else. If I had inserted my credit card details, I wouldn't be surprised to see a few hundred dollars of unexplained spending pop up in next month's statement.

Needless to say, I removed her from my contact list shortly after sending a few not too pleasant insults. However, what pissed me off about all of this isn't that she tried to con some credit card details out of me, but that she actually spend a quarter of an hour trying to gain my trust. Time I could've spend doing other more important things... like con-ing credit card details off unsuspecting people on the web. XD

Anyway, I've being kind of busy studying for my finals so I haven't updated lately, but I'm going to finish my last exam tomorrow (wtf am I doing blogging?) so I might write another review.~

Kurenai - Incestuous lolicon is fine as long as you keep her in the inner most room of your house.

With the current season full of Shounen, mecha, romantic comedy and ridiculous ecchi, I was hoping Kurenai could provide me with something more serious and meaningful. And it certainly did! So far, I've learned that incestuous lolicon is fine as long as you keep her in the inner most room of your house. Okay I should stop saying that; don't need to give the FBI another reason to raid my house. =P (no idea why the FBI would be in Australia though)


Acutally, I picked up Kurenai almost purely based on the presence of a single character: Murasaki Kuhouin. Hey what can I say, I am a sucker for loli. However, after watching the first episode, I realised that this was much more than just another loli infused fanservice exuding moe cuteness at every opportunity. The intelligent dialogue, the fascinating character backgrounds, and the overall sombreness of the series give it a very serious feel. With that said, I'm still watching it predominately for the antics and misadventures of Murasaki.

The story starts off with Benika Juzawa as she helps Murasaki escape the Kuhouin estate. Benika was asked by Murasaki's mother, as her last wish before death, to take Murasaki to the outside world and to teach her love. Benika, with her vast connections, decides to dumps her with one of her pupils, Shinkurou Kurenai.

Obviously she hasn't heard of passive smoking.

The love birds meet for first time.

What follows is a orgy string of loli cuteness misadventures of a spoilt, uptight girl trying to fit in with the lives of the very ordinary. As the episode count climbs, so do our understanding of the character's pasts, and we begin to see the true nature of the Kuhouin family. What started off as simply a more extreme case of a patriarchal family structure suddenly turns into perverse practise of systematic inbreeding. (yes, I'm not kidding)

No I don't have graphic examples of the inbreeding. Stop asking!

Whilst the dialogue, and character development is highly intelligent and interest, the plot development is somewhat lacking. In fact, it took 9 episodes for any real development in the plot. The first 8 episodes were devoted to character development. Considering how the anime is only scheduled to last 12 episodes, it's probably going to be a rushed ending in some kind of final showdown and leaving a dozen unanswered questions. Hopefully, it will all be in order to set up for a second season.

Anyway I'm really not in the mood to write any more so I'll end this review editorial rant with random screen caps.

What can I say, my ex-husband was a midget.

But this is the divorce settlement I got out of him.

Murasaki-chan, I want to do 'it' with you.

Ok let me just change into something more comfortable.

I'm ready. Be gentle Okay?

I'm sorry I wasn't up to your expectations.

Zomg! Domestic violence!

Shinkurou, the aliens have put some kind of metallic force field around this food.

Huh? aliens?

Look at what I bought with your divorce settlement, boiled tofu!

I wonder if my new boner will satisfy Murasaki.

You can't fall asleep now, haven't you heard of covering up the evidence after a murder?

Masochist, another addition to Shinkurou's list of perversions.

Haha, 15 inch, well at least it's an LCD.

Oh no, it's the emo goth hag!

The love rivals meet for the first time.

Shinkurou, that bimbo is too old for you!

Watch closely Murasaki, Shinkurou likes his foreplay rough.

Yep, he's definitely a masochist.

One word for that: Stalker

Clearly shows which one of them has more experience.

What's this? Two timing Murasaki-chan with an older woman?

Don't ask, don't tell.

Freaky lady. Definitely the produce of inbreeding.

Murasaki, I AM your... future husband???

Maybe you haven't noticed, but I'm underaged. I can fulfill your twisted desires too.

I can sure do with some boiled tofu right about now.