Not again... GAH D:

                                       Eureka Seven Ao

following a near 2 month hiatus, E7 Ao returns to screen with its final 2 episodes. Honestly speaking, having a long break in between a season itself isn't really a good thing. Since people tend to lose track of the story or even lose the momentum of the series itself. Expectations would definitely be high awaiting the final 2 episodes, thinking that perhaps the ending would be satisfactory enough to have proved the long break worthy. Madoka did deliver exactly what we could have wanted, but E7 Ao wasn't close to making the mark at all. The 2nd last episode brought to us more mysteries and unanswered questions, following a meet up with the all famous and familiar Renton Thurston. The episode packed a load of mecha action, followed by seeing Ao struggling over the decision of whether or not to change the world by firing the cannon due to continuous stress placed over him by Truth.

In the end, Ao discovers that he had a sister before but had died the moment she was born due to a possible clash of genes between a human and a coralian. As a result, Renton and Eureka has been searching for a place with low trapar concentration to raise their second child, Ao, who was threatened by the blooming corals and the trapar that they produce. Ao wishes for Eureka to stop fighting her own kind, the Coralians, and took the responsibility of taking care of the corals by himself. He fires the cannon, and as a result, he manage to send Eureka and Renton back to the 1st world, or the original E7 world, before he disappears into another time and space. What I thought had happened was that Eureka and Renton were now back to square one, after hearing what Ao had said that they should just continue to live and not deny the fact of his existence, from the suggested use of the cannon to "travel" into another world with less or no trapar. As a result, the first dimension exists another Ao inside Eureka and thus Ao was automatically shifted to another timeline to prevent a time paradox. Finally, Ao arrives in another timeline similar to the one he had left, with no trapar, no coralians, no secrets, and no Nirvash. The 3rd world that Ao had changed after firing the Quartz Cannon for the 3rd time.

The ending was pretty normal, but there wasn't really a definite feel to the end of the series. No one knows what exactly the 3rd world contains, or what might be expected of Ao. Or even that the ending was a happy or a sad one, there isn't really a clear line. What Ao did was to the benefit of his parents but in the end, it took so little effort to part with them both when Ao clearly does misses his mother quite dearly as seen in the earlier episodes. To Renton and Eureka, to allow humans and coralians to coexist was their first mistake which saw the Corals growing out of control and the secrets were created to tackle that. As a result of the coincidental timing of appearance, Scub Burst was named after this phenomenon. Carrying the guilt of the scub bursts and the loss of their first child, it would have made Renton and Eureka determined to set things right, to create a world where there were no Scub Corals and to ensure that their 2nd child, Ao, would live on as a normal child. Having to part with Ao in tears, it makes me wonder if Renton and Eureka were thinking if it was the right decision to make or not. True enough, Ao would be born in their own world perhaps in a few months/years but the risk of Ao repeating the same phenomenon as his sister was still there. The decision was only made when Ao himself asks no not deny his experience of living.

If I was looking into Ao's point of view, it does seem that this ending was a pretty sad one. He had sent his parents back to where they belong and he continues to live alone, in a whole new world that was still unknown to him. With the Scubs gone, there wasn't a sure-thing that the "others" would still remember Ao. Without the Scub, there wouldn't be Generation Blue, and there wouldn't be Nirvash, let alone all the others that he had met: Chief, Fleur, Elena etc. It is a new timeline after all so that would leave many, many questions left unanswered. Seems like a pretty abrupt end though, with the loose ends tied up rather loosely.

With the series coming to a close, there were still some questions that wasn't quite answered as of yet. What exactly did Eureka do when she appears in a hologram state? It just seems that she was able to cross time but not fully, whereas her Scub counterparts have no problem. Nothing much is explained about the Quartz, only that it's the Scub's core and having many of them isn't a good thing... What does the pole light do anyway, seems like a portal to another timeline? And for the Quartz Cannon, does it just deny whatever it shoots or just randomly changes the timeline? The first shot fired eliminated the scub burst and the 4th shot returned Eureka and Renton back to their original timeline.

The whole character of Truth seems to be totally random as well. There wasn't actually much development on his part of the story. Or rather he is portrayed to be an individual who is in a complete mess, not knowing what exactly is he and upon learning the truth, denies his own existence. It would have been far more interesting to see the plot twist earlier, so that they could squeeze in more screentime of the 3rd world, or with Truth as the archtype for Nirvash Neo. I was pretty confused over what Truth had did in the final 2 episodes. He does not seem to have sided with the Scub or the Secrets and due to his messed up conscience, he just wants Ao to fire the cannon to deny his existence. And then comes the same question again, does the cannon deny something? If it does, I wouldn't see how the effect of denying or changing the world structure could have brought Renton and Eureka back together.

Ao was a likeable character, there were some funny and interactive scenes here and there, but he jumps into a hero mode too much that he's endangering the lives of him and his other comrades. The only part that I hate about his personality is that he wavers too much. One moment he vows to fire the Quartz Cannon to get his mother back or to meet with Eureka once again, but then he hesitates again when he knows the truth that the world might change due to the cannon and as a result, he stones and have conflicting actions once again. Which also causes Nirvash to get hit and in the end, had to be rescued by the others. It was pretty tricky since with the multiple timeline part, and in the end, he finds his purpose of his life, or his true goal other than just plainly fighting Secrets and Scubs, at the final 2 episodes. Seriously? Now that's just a lagged out protagonist.

Naru on the other end made me feel the same way as Truth had. In one episode, she meet up with Truth, does not suspect him at all, accepts the Scub and becomes the enemy. And then the series continues to picture her as an icon or a person that can communicate with the Scub, with less and less development on the connection of her and the Scub. Its like "BAM! She's half Scub! Oooooh. Ok."

E7 Ao could have more scenes featuring Renton and Eureka since it is a sequel after all or perhaps this was more like a spinoff? Similar to Code Geass and Last Exile? Though it'll be great if I could see Lavi and Claus fly again in their vanship.

Overall, what I felt really lacking from the ending was the "wow" effect. Having a E7 sequel was an interesting move and with the characters that were not mainly focused on the original characters of E7 was good and with some connections here and there made it better. But then the pacing for the series just felt weird. The ups and down of the series were running around randomly. The plot development seemed rushed near the ending, and even the 23rd episode didn't make it felt like it was the end. Neither did the 1st half of the 24th episode. It just feels like a normal episode that could have still tens of episodes left over for the series... and then it just ends. Like that. It wasn't actually a BAD ending, but just a plain ending that leaves many E7 fans disappointed. The plot was going strong, there was a nice twist of plot but that's just that. Nothing special at all. At times I can't really keep up with how the series was going, there wasn't like a clear end drawn for the story to reach. It just felt like the series could just go on and on until the line is drawn and quickly ends it. At least E7 Ao had more likeable characters compared to Fam of the Silver Wing. Seems just like a repeat of Darker than Black S2... or even more similarly with Hitman Reborn's manga end. If it wasn't said or labeled to be the last episode, I can actually see how the series can continue. Oh well. thankfully the OST still retains its quality :)

Gardens by the Bay!

never would I have thought that I'd be visiting this place through a cohesion event in the Army. Unfortunately my camera wasn't with me so it was quite a pity that I couldn't create another photo album for the Gardens.

On picture, the Supertrees seemed to be huge and the interconnecting bridges had also seemed to be long too. However up close and front, they weren't that huge after all, and the bridge wasn't that high too. Perhaps it would be better to head to the Singapore Flyer instead since the MBS already cover like 30% of the 360 degree view. Although we didn't get to enter the domes, they were rather big on site. It seemed like a standalone shopping centre when seen from far.

Didn't really spend much time browsing the garden since I was pretty zombie for the tasks to be completed since I just had duty the day before, but to me, it seems like a more larger and refined Botanic Gardens. Would prefer the botanic gardens IMO, the natural plants and trees there have more feel and with the other animals like squirrels running over at Botanic Gardens, I think it's a better local place to be in. Perhaps the flower domes would be the main attraction over at the Gardens by the Bay but that's not a free entry place so the competition isn't really there.

                                                                awesome day out!

having cut through the MBS hotel to the shopping district, I was really "wow-ed" by the interior of the MBS. It looks really really high class atas hotel... From another POV, it seems like a departure hall for an airport, with lounges and small cafes over at the ground floor. And then at the Marina area, that's when I was surprised to see a large crowd... or isit really a shock... : OH.. kpop people looking at SMTown. That was quite a crowd there. Perhaps I should thank myself that I wasn't a kpop fan or I would most probably have queued and waited like the many others out there. Marina Square was thus flooded with the concert-goers, bad idea to have headed there for lunch. Settled down later at Pizza Hut (guess that's like the 3rd time I've been there?) burnt my wallet and headed home.

Fun days and counting down to christmas!

Shocking twist - In a good way

its been quite some time since I last took an opportunity to go cycling around the park. After 3 weeks of almost zero exercise, I thought it'd be good to head out and refresh myself a little while, away from the computer. Headed off to Pasir Ris park in the early morning, and it seems like its an elderly haven over there. Almost 70% of the people I see there working out were senior citizens. It's already school holidays but perhaps the children are too coped up with playing their iPad / iPhone I guess... I mean that's a perfectly normal thinking since I've been seeing small kids playing on iPad on trains and on everywhere else... The apple generation is invading too fast! It's still an eye-opener for me since it's really rare that I get to see the quiet peaceful park with the others merely working out or having "qigong" lessons. Since most of the time I'd head there only in the afternoon, it's a rare sight that I'd would have saw. Went a few rounds through Pasir Ris Park and it was roughly the same as I last took notice of it, about 10 months ago. And the nostalgic feel to head down to Elias Mac to have breakfast. Even the cashier aunties were still the same ever since we took that as a study area for last few years.

Headed down to Expo over the weekend, had been only there last week for AFA and no traces had remained after the week. Kinda expected yea. Read somewhere too that Suntec Convention Hall is going for a 6month renovation from Oct 2012. Which means AFA next year would most probably shift back to Suntec, which would be a better place IMO. The Popular bookfair only took up half of a hall this time round, making it more packed than ever. Headed straight to the chinese novel section and was browsing through the taiwan books, mainly from 九把刀 which had some rather interesting books under him. Was actually quite tempted to get a couple of books there but since I do know that I'll most probably delay the reading of the books so maybe next time then I'll get it. And as usual the assessment book section was flooded with parents, scrambling for the appropriate books. Poor kids... It's only the start of the holidays... I do fear too, since it's been like a year since I last studied. Got to refresh myself abit next year before school starts in 2014!

And it's finally out of MISB condition! Quite a lot of parts from a nendoroid, took me quite long to fix it up too, the cannon is really heavy for her hands!

And just a couple of rather significant updates on some of the current ongoing series:

SAO is picking up the pace, to the possible end at 25/26 episode. I don't really see the possibility of SAO to head into the Gun Gale arc so it'll most possibly end on a high note together with ALO. A couple of episodes back, SAO was pretty dry, with just some tsun going on with Leafa / Sugu, and a little too much focus on character curves. It wasn't that bad with Asuna but with Leafa... the animators sure got their eyes on them. The latest episode of SAO was high on tempo, with Kirito showing off his dual wield skill again in ALO and easily defeating a so called "strongest player" in ALO. Now it just seems that Kirito is a hacker. In fact, no one ever doubts or asks him about his origins. I do thought that at least Kirito, the name, would be known from completing SAO or that by his sudden appearance and over the scale stats, no one ever questions him about it. A loophole perhaps? Leaving the unanswered questions aside, Kirito does seem like a hacker doesn't he. Someone who has crazy stats, crazy amount of gold, crazy running and rather fast flying speed, and even a portable GM-like AI to boot. Now that's what I call game imbalance. Seems like Asuna is out of the cage too so I guess it wouldn't be long before the two meet again but for a proper reunion, I'll vouch on the 24-26th.

Chu2Koi had always seem to me as a light-hearted, slice-of-life anime that doesn't really need a proper storyline to bring out the humour and randomness, but the lastest episode shattered this hypothesis, in a good light. I was honestly tricked by its trailer to e expecting the series to be a cool action supernatural type of show but when it turns out to be a "nichijou" type of series, I actually didn't mind it being that way since it's still funny to see the antics of the various weird characters in the series itself. Turning the table around to input a dark and sad element into the series was a good move and a surprising twist. I did expect that the old house that Rikka was running to see was already gone, (it was pretty obvious), but for the series to pull out the post-feeling experience into Rikka, I'd give kudos to that. Having the cheerful music end at the same time as Rikka being exposed to the bare truth and then tearing up before trying to "blast reality" again, it makes me wonder if it was the trauma of her father's death that led to her contracting this syndrome or was it plainly her trying to run away from the truth and thus had used words similar to avoiding reality. Now that adds a darker and mysterious atmosphere into the series and seeing how Rikka was emotionally damaged by that, I do feel for her too. Awesome turn of events and one of the more promising one as of yet.

and here's one of the more touching OST of God Eater Burst:

AFA 2012

It was an extremely tiring weekend and thanks to having an extended weekend up to Tuesday, I'm glad I've got the time to recover. Not sure if I had woken up at 5am on both days is due to being overly excited or a messed up body clock, nonetheless my daily reserve of energy was sapped out quickly at the event.

Rushed to the event on Day 1 at around 8am and even as the doors only open at 9am, the entrance was already crowded with people and I quickly rooted myself to the ground and wait for the sweaty, hot and stuffy one hour to pass. This was actually the 1st time I had squeezed together with the early-goers for the event as I usually would head to the event slightly later to avoid the crowd. Seems like with an agenda this year, I could actually push myself to squeeze with the crowd. On both days, the Madoka movie starts at 9.30am in the other Hall so I've got around 30minutes to grab my goods before heading to the movie. Unfortunately, none of the 2 to-buy-item was in stock. And thus I headed to the movie empty handed and prepare to look out for bargains after the movie had ended.

Day 1 was pure goods hunting, queueing for shops here and there which quickly squeezed all my time away. To make the already tight schedule worse, my Day 1 activities included stage events which meant that I had to slot in time to visit the stage to make my stage ticket worthwhile. The worst and longest queue I was in was the Madoka Movie shop. That itself took me 1hr and 20minutes just to get into the store. Tried my luck on a Kuji there and got the simplest of prize. It was still a movie special merchandise so why not? :)

so basically thats all that I got from the 2 days in AFA. Most of them were in Day 1, where Day 2 I had only got myself a Madoka Half-Age Character and a WS AB Vol.2 booster.

Headed 1st to Kurocha! to grab my card sleeves (like finally) and then went to KKnM which took me about half an hour to get into the shop and luckily for me, I spotted that awesome wall scroll / tapestry as seen above. It wasn't on display in the shop and it was the only one left. And its REALLY quite big. And then, its nendo hunting! Had intended to get a Kyoko nendoroid but I believe the price was still high or that the stock was cut thus there wasn't any at the event. And then I spotted the BRS TV. vers nendoroid and after comparing prices across 3 shops, I took the cheapest one and tadah! Its here! My very 1st nendoroid! Shall leave it in its MISB condition for now due to the lack of proper display cabinet that could turn my nendoroid dusty and stuff like that so I'll just wait a while more...

Day 2 was more of a photo taking day since free hands w/o any goods makes it easier to capture photos. With experience from last year, using only auto-focus for some of the figurines was a bad idea as they tend to focus on random areas even with the focus area being already expanded. Things become blur and worse when it comes to complicated figures and gundams as well. Thus, I went ahead with manual focus all the way for this year and after browsing through, it was pretty hard to get the perfect sharpness but it is better than auto focus too. Gotta train more in that and perhaps tweek the shutter speed too.

its quite a handful of photos and since blogger tends to lower the quality, I've uploaded them onto fb and its a public album, just not that sure whether the link below works :X

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151242830398166.487329.538578165&type=3

Overall, the 2 days has been fun, the movies were awesome, the goods I got made me happy and its really great! However this year it seems that the event hall was smaller than the ones in Suntec City Convention Centre as it was quite obvious that there were lesser merchandises on display and many shops had their area  reduced. And it was quite easy to breeze through from one end to the other end, unlike in Suntec. To offset this, there were much more stores that pique my interest this year and thats a positive thing :D

Well, AFA 2012 is over, see you @ AFA 2013!

Madoka Magica The Movie 1 & 2

SPOILERS AHEAD!

After an extended replay of the Madoka series through their 1st and 2nd movie and the teaser for the upcoming 3rd movie. I can honestly say that the money I spent for these films is definitely worth the bucks. This year with AFA being held at Singapore Expo rather than the usual Suntec Convention Centre, Hall 8 was used as the stage area and the films were being shown via the stage. The screen was unfortunately small, *not that it matters alot since I was quite in front :)* but the audio quality was good. Real good. The speakers were actually of high quality rather than the usual ones that we normally see at Cosfest. Perhaps its an event hall so it'll probably be better equipped.

Having more focus on the films itself, the storyline remains the same for the 1st two films. With the 1st movie making a cut when the truth is revealed about the Mahou Shoujos turning into witches once their soul gem become totally tainted. And the 2nd movie ends the same way as the original anime series did. In the 2 films, there were quite a lot of additional scenes, some which extended the original scenes and some were totally new scenes. An example of an extended scene would be the scene where Kyouko sacrifices herself and brings Octavia / Sayaka down together with her. With more elaborate scenes added in too. A new scene would be right after Kyouko's sacrifice where Kyubey tells Homura that it knew all along that Sayaka couldn't be saved and the setting was in a graveyard with scarlet backdrop, as compared to the original anime series of being in Homura's house. I'm quite positive there were some dialogue changes too, which possibly targeted people whom had watched the original series before as many lines were crafted in such a way that in the end, the viewers would be able to find the link between the timelines. Like how Homura had performed her introduction to Madoka due to Madoka giving Homura the headstart when they 1st met in the very 1st timeline. Many of the OSTs used were remixed as well. Magia had a different feel all together and the BGM used during Sayaka's transformation to Octavia was also noticeably unique and different. What came more shocking was the additional blood effects over in the 2nd movie. Not sure if the animators really wanted the Sayaka/Octavia/Kyouko scene to have a deep impact or what, because apparently Kyouko seemed to have an extremely large open wound at the abdomen area and it just bled. Like: A lot. I don't see Mami being all bloody after getting her head bitten off by Charlotte *though the chewing sounds of her body was distinctively disturbing* but nonetheless I was still surprised. The final interaction scene between Homura and Madoka had also changed in the form of their animation where the original series had their body curves rather distinctively shown with abstract shadows over them, but the movie version was brighter and was featuring them with bright semi-abstract dresses. All in all, it was refreshing to see the remake of the original series with new additional scenes and of high sound and quality but what comes even more exciting was the 3rd movie teaser.

Unfortunately, the teaser for the 3rd film is RAW. There was absolutely no sub. So I wasn't really able to umderstand a huge truckload of it. But according to the teaser, the story will revolve mainly on the 3 main mahou shoujos that are left out of the 5: Homura, Mami and Kyouko. And we got to see Kyouko in their school uniform as well! NOW that's a plus point for the new film! No wonder there was a end slot art on the 5 of them wearing the same school uniforms. Coincidence or just pure genius? :) Seems that MadoKami is able to interact with Homura more closely now and Mami seems to be fighting some unknown enemy that looks like a soul gem. According to sources in SGCafe, apparently in the new world, when Mahou Shoujos get their soul gems tainted, they simply vanish due to the Law of Circles which is something like the concept that Madoka's existence has become. And the worst part is that it seems that the "concept" itself seems to have a flaw in it. Did Madoka's wish not bring the cursed fate to an end? What I believe is that the concept itself breaks the law of entropy. According to Kyubey, Madoka's wish had turn her into a mere concept or a principle where witches simply do not exist anymore and in the previous world, the energy is collected when the transformation to witches begin. Now the problem could lie in the fact that there is no transformation done, Mahou Shoujos have a negative energy level due to their wish being a miracle come true and when they vanish, they leave no trace of positive energy. And that disturbs the law of entropy as it does not fall back to equilibrium. Perhaps the black boxes that the devils carry help to curb the effect but since that's not explained yet, its still a plausible problem to the Law of Circles that Madoka had created. The 3rd movie also has the name of "The Story of Rebellion". And that is a very debatable title in itself, possibly hinting that one of the girls might actually turn her back on the others or that the 3 of them turning against the world due to the flaw in the law. And THATS what makes the 3rd film look so exciting and as something regrettable to be missed. Catch the 3rd film in 2013! Hopefully it's air in Singapore as well. And if it does, I can't wait! :)

a more detailed AFA post will be done up in around 1-2 days