Anime – Page 8 – Krunk4Ever!

September 15, 2006

902kB/s

Just wanted to show you what my new modem has helped me achieved: 902kB/s download!!! That’s almost 1MB/sec.

I also got to watch the new Detective Conan – Movie 10 – The Private Eye’s Requiem tonight. Here’s a cute clip of Eri and her cat. It seems like Detective Conan – Movie 11 is already in the works and will be released in 2007. They didn’t mention which quarter though.

How is this fast speed and me getting to watch Detective Conan tonight related? *whistles*

July 29, 2006August 19, 2006

I wish you were Shinichi

I saw another great scene in Detective Conan yesterday and wanted to share: Detective Conan – I wish you were Shinichi.

This video was ripped at the end of episode 308 (The Dark Footprint – Part 2), but it was replayed again at the beginning of 309 (Contact with the Black Organization – Negotiation Part). Ran and Conan are walking home, hand in hand, whe Ran bursts out asking if people change and do separated people’s heart grow apart. She finally utters that she wishes Conan was Shinichi. Conan wants to tell her he is, but can’t put her in danger until he’s captured the Black Organization.

June 13, 2006August 19, 2006

Who On Earth Are You?

Got two more Detective Conan scenes to share:

Detective Conan – Who On Earth Are You? – In Detective Conan Special Episode #304 – A Shaking Police HQ and 12 Million Hostages, Conan decides to not diffuse a bomb because apparently they needed to wait for the clue to pinpoint another bomb location. He apologizes to Detective Takagi and Takagi asks, “Who on earth are you?” Conan replies, “Oh, well if you really want to know… then I’ll tell you… in the next world.”

Initially, Windows Movie Maker was coughing. Super was coughing. Even VirtualDub was coughing. I mean, the video plays fine, but those software just couldn’t find the codec need to parse it. I looked at the file and it apparently was encoded with DivX 3. I have FFDShow installed and that supposedly installs a whole lot of codecs that can parse every XviD and DivX codec there is. But apparently, that wasn’t enough. I had to actually install DivX Codec 3.11 Alpha before the video edit programs would even accept the file. DivX Codec 3.11 Alpha sure does bring back memories.

The second one is:

Detective Conan – Confession of Love – In Movie 4 – Captured In Her Eyes, Ran gets amnesia from shock after seeing Detective Sato getting shot to near death. Conan decides that he’ll do everything in his power to protect her as the culprit may want to kill her before she regains her memory. When Ran questions Conan why he’s protecting her so much, Conan replies, “Because I love you. In this world, I love you more than anyone else.”

Enjoy!

June 12, 2006August 19, 2006

Another Awesome Detective Conan Moment

First I wanted to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY OHFUEE!

Just wanted to share this clip with you. I’ve seen this awhile back, but Kaizou’s been releasing a bunch of Detective Conan fansubs recently and they’re the episodes I haven’t watched that led up to this major battle between Kudo, the FBI, and Chris Vineyard. WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS!!! Here’s the video clip:

Detective Conan – But no reason is needed for saving someone

I won’t bother going into the details of how they got to this point. Chris Vineyard is about to shoot Sherry (Haibara Ai) and Ran dashes out from the trunk and as the sniper is trying to shoot her down, Ran jumps out to cover and protect Sherry. All the same time Chris is shouting to Calvados (sniper) to stop shooting. I’ve always had the impression that Chris Vineyard likes Kudo and Ran, but never knew why until now, as she reflects back to the first time they met. She was disguised as a buglar and she runs in to Ran during her escape and was about to kill her. However, she accidentally slips and was moments from falling off the building. However, Ran rescues her and she was dumbfounded and asks “Why… Why did you save me? Why?” Kudo says, “Is a reason needed? There are many reasons for killing, but no reason is needed for saving someone.” From that point forward, Kudo Shinichi (Edogawa Conan) has been referred by her as Cool Kid and Ran has been referred by her as Angel.

I won’t spoil the ending of this battle, but if you want to watch this episode, it’s episode #345 – Head-to-Head Match With Black Organization, Two Mysteries Night of the Full Moon. It’s a 2-hour special and was really fun.

June 4, 2006

Death Note

So I mentioned I finished reading the manga a few days ago. The ending was good and throughout the storyline, it was fun following their deductions and investigative skills.

As I mentioned before:

The premise of the story is every Death God (死神 – shinigami) has a notebook. In traditional stories (at least in Chinese folk tales), this is a notebook of the list of all living people, when they’ll die, and how they’ll die. The twist in this story is that this notebook is in fact blank, and Death Gods can write who’s ever name they want and how they die. Somehow a boy named Raito (ライと – Light), a teenage geinus, gets ahold of one of these notebooks and learns about its mysterious power. Raito uses the notebook for justice, killing off criminals. However, these unexpected deaths have raised suspicion in the police and investigation agencies around the world. A world class detective named L (also a teenager like Raito) tries to locate the person everyone on the internet has been calling Kira (キラ) and now it’s the battle between 2 geniuses. Click on show spoilers to find out more.

Spoilers: (Show)

As the story goes on, on one hand you have Light/Kira who’s a bored genius who plans on becoming this world’s savior and ultimately God by killing off all the criminals. On the other hand, you have L, a genius detective who’s never failed to solve a case. Both apparently are just teenagers and L was able to figure out Light was in Japan near the Kanto region with just a few moves. However, Light isn’t able to kill L without knowing his name nor face (a requirement of the death note).

The battle continues where L utilizes FBI agents to follow around possible suspects and Light utilizing the death note and killing off all the agents. That was the first step Kira made incorrectly. Although people could disagree with what’s he’s doing, the people he killed there were not criminals. This caused major panic inside the police force and many ended up quitting because fear of their lives. Others decided to side with Kira, though Kira was just a fictitious name given by people online (Kira = Killer).

So L goes undercover and enters College with Light under a false name. Immediately both sides knew who the other side was, but neither side could do anything. L needed proof and Light needed his name.

The story continues as both sides tries to pull the other out, when Misa appeared into the story. Misa apparently was another death note holder and was a major fan of Kira because he had helped her revenge her parents death (unknowingly) since he just kills criminals. This brings about the ‘eye’ as one can trade half of their remaining life span with the death god and get an eye which allows him or her to see the name of any person and how much life that person has left. This would give the death note holder the ability to kill anyone just by seeing them since hidden identities are no longer a problem.

However, before Light was able to get Misa to catch L’s real name, Light’s suspicion has gotten to the point where he’s 99% sure it’s Light and decides to question him. He even suspects that Misa is the 2nd Kira. A whole slew of exchanging ownership of the notebook and how to get ownership back was interesting. As one gives up ownership of the notebook, they forget everything about it and this played out well when both Misa and Light were held in captivity for 50 days seeing if murders continued.

Of course it did as this was part of Light’s plan as he told Ryuk, his death god to bring the notebook to some high executive who’s been killing competitors.

The investigation continues and apparently the who Japanese team that’s been trying to track down Kira gets to see the Death God as they try to capture this new Kira. The notebook was confiscated, but Light’s plan is suceeding and he ends up killing L as things got calm.

The story however, doesn’t end here as they introduce Near and Mello, L’s successors. Near is like tiny L if I had to say.

However, the Japanese team didn’t know this and they told Light to play the role of L as he was no longer around.

The Near and Mello arc was interesting, since Near was the true successor of L and Mello was the runner-up, Mello decided to go off on his own and try to solve this case. Both had a hunch of the existance of the notebook, but since this story was never publically told, they could only guess so. Near went the official route through the FBI while Mello teamed up with criminals to get the notebook. They ended up capturing Light’s sister and demanded that they trade the notebook for Sayu’s life.

Near tries to get the notebook through the official channels, but when they lost the notebook, they contact Near for help. So that you’re not confuse, there’s 3 death notes currently in existance. Governments have begun giving in to Kira as the USA declared they will no longer actively pursue Kira and other countries slowly followed. Crime has dropped to near non-existance and was that truly a good thing? However, with a death note in Mello’s hand, he know knew about the fake rules and about the eye. Kira does something special here and he sends his father his death note telling him about the eye and how to use it, saying he wants to help catch Mello too. With the team, the were able to penetrate into their base and Light’s father even saw Mellow’s real name, but he was too soft hearted to kill and ended up getting killed himself. However, he did get the notebook back.

One thing’s that’s funny is how are the criminals that Mello is using still around if Kira is killing off all of them already.

Story continues as Near’s investigation goes deeper and he realizes the 2nd L (Light) is Kira and slowly bit by bit he was able to turn even some of Light’s men against him.

The final battle involved once again giving up ownership of the notebook as he sent it to a guy named Mikami who seems to have the same ideals and justice within him. And then there came Takada, a news reporter that was the messenger between Kira and Mikami. Through a series of tricks and deceptions, Light made it seemed like he was trying to get Takada to give more info about Kira, while what he was really doing was giving orders.

Near notices this weird transition and even finds out about Mikami and calles him X-Kira, however, catching Mikami won’t do since Near wants Light. And the final showdown comes about. Near had decided to meet up with Light and both of them knew this was the final battlestage. Near tells the whole group, that soon, there were be a man out there with a death note writing down all our names. The only name he doesn’t write will be Kira. However, he said he had swapped the notebook with a fake one, so it would not kill them.

However, Light knew about the swapping before hand and of course knew that the notebook they swapped with wasn’t the real death note and he shouted victory before a little bit too early. Apparently, due to Takada’s incident (Mello captured her), but both Light and Mikami knew that she needed to die, Near was able to find out about the real death note in the safety deposit box and swapped that too. Mikami for some reason at this point has gone crazy and calling Kira God over and over again. So now Light is stuck and everyone knows that he’s Kira. He tries to argue away trying to buy sometime to figure out what to do, and as he attempted to take out piece of death note he has hidden in his watch, he gets shot. At this point, he screams for help, for Misa, for Takada, and even for Ryuk. Ryuk says, he’ll write something in the notebook and Light gets cocky again, but Ryuk said, he’s going to right Light’s name in it as he already declared the 1st moment they met that he would not help him besides watch how interesting humans were and if the time came for Light’s death, he’ll be the one that does it.

Light dies and the world continues as the time before Kira. There’s still many that believe Kira will return. The ending of the story shows a line of people with candles walking up a mountain, praying for Kira would what my guess would be. However, I wasn’t able to figure out who the girl was. I would’ve guessed either Misa or his sister Sayu, but neither really looked like her and Misa shouldn’t ever have remembered about Kira as she gave up her ownership.

One thing I never got was how Light ever found out Mello’s real name as his father died before able to tell him.

The way I was expecting the ending initially was Mikami was going to be the scapegoat and reveal himself and Light would have nothing to do with it. As the story progressed to the meeting, I thought since Light knew about the notebook swap, he had ordered Mikami to write everyone’s name besides Near’s and make him the culprit which I thought would’ve been the smarter move. Afterwards they can control Near and do what they want since they knew his name.

Mikami’s final performance was also a bit jarring as he was a meticulous person and very serious, but his final actions as he saw God, was just absurd. And the point that he was screaming “YOU’RE NOT GOD!” at the end when Light lost this battle, shows that he had snapped completely.

Also, the trailer for the movie appears to be subbed: Death Note Movie Trailer (English Subtitles) (from BB)

June 3, 2006June 4, 2006

Windows Movie Maker

So I learnt a new trick with Windows Movie Maker today. To a beginner, the application may seem easy to use, but when you’re trying do advance customizations on it, it’s horrible.

Things I don’t like about it:

The only way to create clips of long videos is by using the beginning and endng trim lines. What they need is to be able to enter start time and end time for this. Also the trim lines jumps in increments determined by the program so by default it hops every 5 seconds giving you even less control of where you want it to end
Only 2 default aspect ratios. 4:3 or 16:9. If you’re video is not one of those ratios, then it stretches one of the dimensions.
During save, it doesn’t explicitly allow you to set the resolution nor bitrate. Instead you have the option of choosing the max size or going through a list of video settings that’ll choose the size for you.

Things I like about it:

Really easy to use
Everything’s pretty much drag and drop
Allows you to set a max size to determine the best bitrate. Good when video servers cap you at a certain file size (YouTube: 100MB / PutFile: 25MB)
Works with almost all video files. (there were a few that I had problems with)
Creates .wmv files that plays in any Windows Media Player

I did have another problem with it before was that trying to move the begin and end trim lines was an arduous process. On the bottom of the screen, there’s a time line that by default shows about 3 minutes worth of clip and you can scroll until you hit the end. If I had a 60 minute clip before, I would have to move the begin trim line 3 minutes in, scroll, and repeat the process. I didn’t find a easy way to zoom in or out of the time line, until I accidentally found out how to do it today.

Apparently, by holding down CTRL and using your scroll wheel (CTRL + SCROLL WHEEL), you can zoom in and out of the time line like you would in a picture. Now I can zoom out so far that the entire timeline fits on one screen and then move the trim lines from there. Afterwards, I would zoom in to both trim lines, so the increments/decrements will be small and I could be more precise on when to exactly start and stop. Still not as great as being able to enter the stard and end time, but way better than what I had before.

So I went ahead and made these clips where I took screenshots of and posted in one of my previous entries: Favorite Detective Conan moments:

Detective Conan – NEED NOT TO KNOW (mirror).
Detective Conan – Identity Almost Revealed to Ran (mirror)

If you’re using the PutFile link, you might need to change View Size to WIDE for the dimensions to be correct.

May 13, 2006May 13, 2006

Blood+ Episodes 11 – 27

Don’t ask me why I suddenly decided to screen cap 17 episodes of Blood+ on a Friday night at 2:30am. Maybe it was because their was a cute girl in the last episode and she did some cute things and then there was a red balloon. Or it might’ve been Saya busting out crazy moves (finally the story’s moving). I had actually thought about just finish watching this series and then just do a final summary like I did with Saber Marionette J to X, but yeah…

Episode 11 – After the dance

Episode 12 – Invited by the White Fog

Episode 13 – Jungle Paradise

Episode 14 – The Last Sunday

Episode 15 – I want to follow her!

Episode 16 – Siberian Express

Episode 17 – Do You Remember Our Promise?

Episode 18 – Ekaterinburg’s Moon

Episode 19 – Broken Heart

Episode 20 – Chevalier

Episode 21 – Sour Grapes

Episode 22 – The Zoo

Episode 23 – The Two Chevaliers

Episode 24 – Gentle Singing

Episode 25 – Red Shield

Episode 26 – The Followers of Saya

Episode 27 – Paris, Je t’aime

Spoilers (Show)

So a lot has happened in these past 17 episodes. Saya has finally remembered her past and has learnt that Diva is here sister, and that she herself isn’t human (not like we couldn’t tell already). She then questions the motives of the humans of why they’re trying to get her to kill her own sister. She’s in major confusion and Haji doesn’t offer to help explain everything. As everyone believes, they think that it’s better for her to remember everything by herself.

She arrives at The Zoo, and their she remembers how Haji became her Chavelier and the reason why she needs to kill Diva. Diva is the evil sister and has always been locked up in the tower. Saya is the nice sister and has always been given freedom and Joel treats her like a daughter. However, one day, because Saya wanted to make a new friend, she lets Diva out of the tower and she ends up killing everyone and burning the mansion down. Joel was studying Saya and apparently the Joels pass on their name to their first born son and the generation continues to study Saya. David is another one of those in the society where the name is passed on from generation to generation.

With her memory completely back, she bumps into Solomon who tries to convince her that she should be with her own kind and the humans are using her. Haji and Solomon end up in a big fight. At the same time, David, Kai and Rick have also arrived at The Zoo in search of Saya. Riku follows a tune being sang and ends up meeting Diva, who he thought was Saya (I believe they’re twins). She manages to get Rick close enough and suck out all his blood. By the time Saya arrives, they get into a fight and Saya was obviously weaker, however, she keeps trying her best. At the end, Haji arrives to protect her and Diva and Solomon leaves.

Rick looks like he won’t last long enough for the medical team to arrive. Kai begs Saya to save him, but the only way would be the same thing she did for Haji, which would stop time for Rick. Kai doesn’t care, and Saya gives Rick her blood and he manages to continue to live.

Story continues and the Sifs enter the picture. Apparently they are man-made vampires by Amshel, one of Diva’s chaveliers. They’re strong, but not as strong as the chaveliers. For some reason, they believe they can continue living if they get ahold of a chavelier’s blood or Saya’s/Diva’s blood. They have a condition called ‘thorn’ in which they crystalize and break apart. Irene, the cute Sif I was talking about (you can see the pictures in episode 27) manages to get to talk with Kai and tell him the whole history of Sif, but not knowing anything else besides fighting, they had never really bothered to ask for Saya’s blood instead of trying to take it by force.

However, at this moment, Diva comes into town and hell breaks lose…

There’s also the side story of Mao and the reporter trying to find Saya and Kai. They get close everytime, but just never seem to be close enough. Mao’s pretty cute too! (see her pictures in episode 25)

May 7, 2006

xxxHOLiC Episodes 3 – 4

More xxxHOLiC!!! Yay!

xxxHOLiC Episode 3 – Angel

xxxHOLiC Episode 4 – Uranai (Fortune-Telling)

Spoilers: (Show)

May 6, 2006

Naruto The Movie 2

The Great Clash! The Phantom Ruins in the Depths of the Earth (大激突！幻の地底遺跡だってばよ)

Finally got time today to watch the 2nd Naruto movie. As Liam told me, it wasn’t as good as the 1st one. I actually haven’t watched Naruto fo months already. These fillers are still happening and there’s no end in sight yet. I can’t wait for the day when they start showing the story when Naruto 3 years older.

AnimeNfo
Anime News Network
Naruto HQ

Spoilers: (Show)

April 18, 2006April 18, 2006

xxxHOLiC Episodes 1 – 2

Started watching a new series because I found it it was by Clamp through Belldandy. I had already gotten the movie or OVA xxxHOLiC: Manatsu no Yoru no Yume awhile ago, but never really watched it till I realized that a TV series was being released for it. Then I started watching it this weekend and got addicted to it. The drawing style is weird, typical of Clamp. The arms and legs are really long, quite disproportionate from the rest of the body, but the drawing style is pretty amazing.

The series is based on the manga that is still in the works:

xxxHOLiC, Vol. 1
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 2
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 3
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 4
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 5
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 6
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 7
xxxHOLiC, Vol. 8

xxxHOLiC Episode 1 – Hitsuzen (Inevitable)

xxxHOLiC Episode 2 – Kygoen (Falsehood)

Spoilers: (Show)

First of all, I have to say Yuuko, the main female character, is so PRETTY! The story begins with a boy named Watanuki. He is a very spiritual person and has been seing spirits ever since he can remembered. These spirits are in the form of goo or blobs and they try to drag him down and not let him move. No idea why though and Watanuki doesn’t seem to know either.

One day, while being chased by these spirits, Watanuki finds himself at a weird looking house and the moment he touched the fence, the spirits disappeared. And out of control, he started walking into the house all on his own. There you meet 2 little girls: Maru and Moro, and what relationship they have with Yuuko is still a mystery. At first it seems Yuuko’s is a store owner of random crap, but later it seems she’s muc more of a fortune teller or psychic. In this store, whatever you wish for can be delivered, but with a equivalent cost of course, sometimes even your soul. Yuuko says that their meeting was inevitable and it was not a mere coincidence. This all sounded like psychic talk initially, but it also fueled the storyline.

She tells Watanuki what he wants to hear and tells him that she can stop him from seeing the spirits. And in exchange, he’ll have to work there part time until she determines he’s paid off the cost. Watanuki at first was hesitant, but for the story to continue, he finally obliges. He does basically all the chores around the house and we then meet this cute little black mouselike creature that likes to eat and drink. The little mouselike creature is called Mokona.

The second episode revolves around a lady who has a bad habbit of lying. Watanuki noticed black smoke coming out from her pinky. Pinky if you didn’t know is the symbolism for promise, though in Japanese culture, it can also be used to mean girlfriend or boyfriend. The story goes on and she almost gets killed because of her bad habbit, not in the sense that lying got her in trouble, but that the there was a bad aura around her which was slowly damaging her body because of this. Watanuki followed her and even rescued her from an accident.

I also haven’t talked about the movie or OVA, but that you should watch for yourself. Did I mention how pretty Yuuko is?