5 Minutes Alone

Why did it go over the five-minute mark again? Anyways here's my arrange of "Desire Drive", the Stage 4 BGM of Touhou 13, for the 2nd Movement of Distant Phantasm, an online event for overseas Touhou arrangers.

Desire Overdrive

A rather misleading name I say, and YouTube seems to hava some weird audio compression thing going on. Well I guess I still have a lot to learn.

Carnival Phantasm was hilarious though.

This And That

But in a pure and innocent sense. So C80 has officially concluded; somehow I had been looking forward to it more than the last year's, probably because of Touhou 13. According to the Mainichi Daily News, the number of attendants this year dropped by twenty thousand, most likely due to the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan a few months ago; but I reckon five hundred and six thousand is still quite a lot.

Anyways since many music, books and games are still waiting to be uploaded, it is perhaps a little too early to give my impression of this year's summer comiket. Nevertheless I'm quite pleased with some of the releases so far,

Seiga Nyan-Nyan, why you so lovely?

Of course, Touhou 13 was the main dish for me, despite the fact that the demo was a bit disappointing. So as I powered my way through the first three stages (which were in the demo anyway), I instantly fell in love with Stage 4's BGM, "Desire Drive". I wouldn't go as far as to say it's my favourite, since "Fall of Fall ~ Autumnal Waterfall" is still pretty hard to beat, but "Desire Drive" is definitely a very nice track. It really gives the game a feel of urgency which the first three stages lacked; and is just me or the chorus sounds a little bit like "Extend Ash ~ Hourai Victim"? I actually laughed a bit when I saw Seiga, I think I need more time to get used to ZUN's new art style. She was also pretty easy to defeat, even though she had Yoshika as a meat shield. My memory gets a little hazy after Stage 4; neither Soga no Tojiko or Mononobe left good impressions on me, currently waiting for good fanart to convince me otherwise. Toyosatomimi no Miko was awesome though, even if she did look a bit out of place...must be the hands. I refuse to comment on the Extra Stage boss.

Generic Title is The Best Title

Especially when it's not even a proper one. I don't know why I'm posting this but I think it's worth a listen if you haven't already,

a2c on the guitar again, doing some of the best solos I've ever heard on "夜明けのプリズム". It's really amazing how well the solos compliment the song while still being rather technical; no wonder a2c gets called to do work here and there, he's a very good musician (might I add that TERRA and setzer are pretty beastly too).

So apparently Midori Kanda (神田翠) has quit cosplaying with the removal of her blog, twitter and Cure accounts, as well as an apology to her fans. What a shame. I had just finished watching Omamori Himari too, which I picked up after seeing Midori's Himari cosplay.

No hard feelings

A somewhat average show as it turned out. It was mildly amusing until the last two episodes, which were essentially one big cliché storm. I'm hoping the manga is better. To be fair though, at least Yuuto wasn't as clueless and useless as many other harem anime protagonists. Also Korone from Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou is totally Shizuku. In fact I think there are quite a bit of similarities between these two shows; Yuuto being a demon-slayer who doesn't wish to harm demons and Akuto being the demon king who doesn't want to hurt humans; both have a female lead who wields a katana; Ageha and Lily Shiraishi who can both stretch their limbs; Kuesu and Fujiko who are both witches and try to force themselves onto the main character. Even the art looks somewhat similar sometimes, but that's probably just me.

I also watched Ga-Rei Zero, the anime prequel to Ga-Rei. It was tough watching the show as Yomi's world fell apart. No matter where, Yomi's always the best. Although I must admit I was constantly being reminded of Hitagi Senjougahara every time I saw Yomi, and I still can't decide if that's a good thing.

Boobs. Boobs everywhere.