Lucky day

I consider myself to have a bad luck when it comes to lucky draw, lucky dip, random prizes, and things like that. Therefore, I am very happy with my luck today. Today was the first time that I won "big" for a lucky draw. I won the 3rd prize!! Yay!! The prize is just $100 of Resorts World Sentosa vouchers. I don't know whether they can be used for the shops outside the Universal Studios. However, they are expiring in late March 2015 and my family would be coming here in March next year. So at least I can utilise the voucher for a family dinner.

I am very pleased although this was only the 3rd prize because I prefer cash or voucher over goods. The 2nd prize was a coffee maker and the 1st prize was an air purifier. For a homeless person like me, these things will just pile up in my room. So the voucher prize is simply the best one for me. Hehe..

30 September is the feast day of my patron Saint: Saint Jerome. I am sure that my good luck today is also due to his prayers and intercessions. I am very thankful for that but of course the greatest glory still goes to God for this gift.

Self-absorbed

When you are too self-absorbed, you don't care about others and you don't even think of able to like or love someone. And that is exactly what is going on with my life: it is all about me.. me.. and me. I can't bear the thought of being rejected by a girl and thus I always wish for a girl who will come forward to me. My wish came true and it is not 1 but 2 girls. Human can never be happy or satisfied and now I wish that I never wished what I wished. Lol..

In university, I belong to a clique in which I am the only guy and right from the first year, 1 of the girls and I often joke around as a couple. Yep that continues occasionally until today. I went cycling with half of this clique last Sunday and during lunch, they asked me why I never consider that girl as a girlfriend after so long joking around. Err... if really there is a feeling, I think by now I already ask to be together with her lor..

The other girl is an ex-temp staff at my workplace. I did not suspect anything when at one time she suddenly asked me about my girlfriend criteria as I thought she was asking on behalf of her friend. But after that her advances were getting more obvious like offering to bring lunch for me or asking to drink Starbucks promotion together. It becomes difficult for me: if I remain normal, I may be giving her false hope.. if I become mean, then I would be an asshole who assume that she likes me. Without realising, on the last few weeks of work, there was no such thing as normal. I did become a bit more strict towards her but I still maintain our LINE communication. It all ended with a message that she sent me last week. That message was just short of asking if I want to be with her. I just answered with a NO icon and that was it. I guess I just want to make it obvious that I am okay as friends but no for anything beyond that.

As of now, I still want to be single and free. I don't care what people say.. People can say I am gay. I am okay with that :) After all, my one and only true love as of now is only myself and I am a guy. So yes, I am in love with a guy. Haha..

I am sick of being homeless and I get upset every time my parents mention about home.. I guess as my revenge, I keep telling them "No house no wife". IF (yes a big IF) my parents really get me a house, I really don't know what to do next. Haha.. How to find a wife sia?? The one girl that I like and that I think can be a wife material in the sense that I can imagine myself building a family with her is currently already having a boyfriend sia... I have not met any other girl who invokes the same emotion in my heart and brain leh..

25km

Aching legs

Painful butt

Burnt skin

Greasy fingers

Guess what did I do?

Sex on the beach is definitely not the answer. Haha... I went to cycle yesterday morning with a different group of friends. We cycled from ECP to Changi Beach and back. According to my friend's smartwatch, the total distance was about 25km. I guess that's another item crossed out from my bucket list.. Lol.. For a group of lazy bums like us, to do that was an achievement.

Things did not begin smoothly as a few of us complained of problems with our bikes. The gears did not work properly. The chain on my bike came off when I changed gears. Bleah.. We reached Changi Beach after cycling for 1 hour (including all the stops due to bike problems) and the distance was about 12.5km. We thought it was quite ridiculous considering one of our friends can complete a 10km run in just 50minutes. How could we cycle as fast as a human running?

Not sure if it was fatigue or the bike was really shit. The journey back was killing us, me especially. The chain came off another 2 times.. The bike did not seem to retaining speed which made me have to pedal continuously. Something was really not right with my bike as to keep on the same speed with my friends, I had to pedal more revolutions. In fact, I followed the pedalling speed of the people ahead of me and I realised that they were getting further.. Perhaps it was a karma for cursing those family bikes last week. My bike was actually moving as fast as those family bikes on the way back..

I am quite sure if I had an ok bike, it would not be this tiring and painful.. Bleah.. Now I am thinking twice about cycling at ECP... And I don't know how I am going to survive the 10km run this December T_T

Final Fantasy VII Cold Cast Model: Cloud vs Sephiroth

I am not a fan of Final Fantasy VII but ironically the most expensive toy that I ever spent on is an FF VII item. Final Fantasy VII Cold Cast Model: Cloud vs Sephiroth is notoriously expensive with eBay listing ranging from USD 5000-10000 . Of course nobody actually purchased at that price. The usual end price of successful auctions/sales range from USD 1800 - 2000. The figure was released in 1999 and as the name suggest, it is a resin cold cast statue. I suppose the main reason for the crazy price is that it is a limited edition statue and only 1000 pieces are ever produced. There is actually no proof of this production size as there is no serial number or serial card that comes with the statue. I think shirtless Sephiroth is a second reason for the crazy price. Lol.

The statue comes in a box measuring approximately 29cm (L) x 20cm (W) x 24cm (H). All sides of the box are sealed and there is no flap to open the box "nicely" bleah.. That sucks as there is no best way to open but yet retain the box in top condition. Inside the box, there is another box containing the styrofoam which holds the statue parts.

Front side of the packaging box

Back side of the packaging box

Top and bottom sides of the packaging box bear the same image

One side of the openings has Sephiroth picture while Cloud picture is at the other side

Quite simple to assemble: 2 parts of the base, Cloud and Sephiroth bodies, their swords, and an FF VII signage

The base dimension is 35cm x 14.5cm. Unfortunately, there is nothing that actually hold the 2 parts of the base. You can put them close together but each part is still a separate piece that you can move apart. It does not give a very secure feeling when having the statue on display.

A very nice and realistic base to show damaged ground after intense fight

The bottom of the base is very smooth. There isn't even Square Enix or Made in China engravings

Cloud and Sephiroth are about 13-14cm tall. Each of them is only connected by 1 peg to the base which basically makes me very worried to display the whole piece which depicts their final battle in the game.

Quality-wise. this piece is very impressive. Despite being made in 1999, it is still impressive by today's standard: shadowing for the muscles, dirt effects on Cloud's shoes, the evidence of battle damage on the Buster Sword, and the details of Cloud's clothes. The faces and the expressions are not 'derpy' like Squall, Rinoa, Quistis, and Selphie from FF VIII Transcendent Artist's Collection. The only imperfection is the paint used for Sephiroth's hair which feels cheap. Instead of giving a silvery colour, it is a blue-ish.

Can't see Sephiroth's Masamune

It should be called Sephiroth vs Cloud instead. The view is nicer from this side.

Metal plate bearing name of the statue

Don't know why Cloud is so grumpy. It is as if he is the enemy!

Cloud from the back

Look at the shading of the Buster Sword

Turn on the flash and look at the details of the battle damaged sword! Wow..

The iconic hair

Front and back view of Sephiroth

The realism of all the shoulder and arm muscles in motion

And that is his nipple! Impressive considering male nipples are something taboo in Japanese anime/manga/game lol

He is smiling! It is as if he is the protagonist.

If he can be this good looking, why do they need to make him look like a zombie in the game sia?

I actually bought this piece in March and what took me so long to post this is the insurance outcome. This item arrived DAMAGED!! Gosh!! I paid USD 1666 (including shipping) and I was really upset when it arrived with Sephiroth's hair broken to few pieces. Unfortunately, I bought this from this bastard eBay seller: pecel. The whole insurance process was so distressing and it took almost 4 months. After the claim was granted, he wanted me to send the statue back which means he wanted to get the money + the statue. What an asshole scammer. In his listing, he wrote no return. If he is genuine with the whole thing, he would ask me to send the item back right from the start, refund me, and settle his insurance claim on his own. But no.. he held my money hostage for 4 months and only after the insurance claim was granted, he demanded me to return the item. I am pretty sure if the insurance claim was rejected, he would not even bother to refund me or anything. I did not want to prolong the distress settling with this asshole so I just got it over and done with with USD 400 refund.

The part that I glued back :(

Return to the east

I went to Expo on Friday for Popular Bookstore sale. I went to a similar event only once and that was perhaps 8-9 years ago when I was still in JC. The only thing I could remember was that it was very hot inside. I spent $5 for an illustrated Da Vinci Code book (yes, that popular book by Dan Brown). I still keep the book until today as it has hard cover and numerous photos of the locations mentioned in the book.

I was expecting something similar. Of course I did not get what I expected. Singapore Expo is fully air conditioned now. In fact, I was surprised that Changi City Point shopping mall is located opposite the MRT. With a shopping mall in the vicinity, I guess Expo is no longer as quiet as it used to be. Sadly, I went home empty handed. None of the book caught my interest. I was interested to get Vision of Escaflowne TV series DVD for a mere $3 but after seeing the payment queue, I just could not be bothered. Haha...

Yesterday I went to ECP for cycling. Boy.. it is almost 7 years since the last time I went there during RCIY camp. I did not enjoy my JC days but surprisingly there are a lot of memories with the school, ECP, and Siglap areas. Yea.. there were good times at these places too which I think count more than my dislike towards my ex-classmates.

Anyway ECP is no longer a fun place to cycle. Now they have these family bikes which are damn slow and obstructing the road. Haiz.. Near the food centre, people were walking without regards to the road. Bleah.. A friend teased me why on earth someone would be cycling with a black face. Haha..

Although it was a nostalgia trip, it made me rather emo. Bedok Jetty would definitely be a camwhoring place and there is a reason why I don't take selfies. My face looks terribly round, fat, and ugly from close T_T Perhaps not only my face but all of me in general :(

Finally!

After so many months, a few attempts and requests, several transfers, and many people come and go, the day has finally come for my turn to leave :) Yay!!

I deliberately wrote something that ambiguous to trick my friends that I am changing job. Haha.. Actually I am just changing workgroup at work. Basically it is just a change of portfolio, or change of admin duties, or change of things that I need to nag on.

I can't hide my joy for finally able to get out of the customer service workgroup. Despite the perks of relatively much slacker workload and a very motherly chairperson, I just cannot champion something I don't believe in. It is not that I don't believe in good customer service. I just don't agree to the idea of customer service that the rest has. In my opinion, customer service is something very human and thus it is very natural that nice people beget good customer service while nasty assholes get black face. After all, how do you expect people to put on smile while the customers are being rude and abusive?

However, the thing that I hate most is the people. It seems that since we are in something called "customer service", everyone becomes a hypocrite during the meetings. Ideas are thrown without much thinking how staff at the ground will feel when these are implemented. Myself, being someone more negative and more vocal, consistently becomes the irritating voice of dissent. Some examples: 

1) Who seriously gives a damn about proper telephone greeting when most organisations use automated answering machines at this time and age sia? Although I am obedient enough to enforce the so-called telephone etiquette, I just don't believe on the idea behind it. Phone calls are such a distraction at work. People who are working also feel the same and thus it is difficult to enforce this as this does not come naturally.

2) Expecting staff to SMILE and to use salutation to every single customer. Imagine doing that for 8 hours every day. Smiling, being friendly, saying Mr/Miss/etc should be something natural and it is a joke trying to enforce that for every single person! Jeez..

There are still so many examples which I am just lazy to write. But in summary, I just don't subscribe in where we are heading to. We do things for the sake of customers but not thinking at all about the staff who have to do all the additional bullshit at work.

It feels so good to finally leave this sia.. I can't imagine how sweet it will feel if I am finally able to find a new job. Someone please offer me a better job leh T_T I am still very very sore about my appraisal as I think my negativity is shown the most on these customer service meetings when a lot of ideas that I disagree upon are thrown. Despite my negativity, they should at least realise and give credit that my branch is one of the 2 or 3 that passed both customer service audits last year hor!

Yoroiden Samurai Troopers / Ronin Warriors

Yoroiden Samurai Troopers (or Ronin Warriors as it is known in the West) is one of my childhood anime that I never managed to complete because of my tuition classes. Lol.. It has a similar concept to Saint Seiya and Shurato with boys donning magical armors to fight evil. Ironically, it pales in comparison to Saint Seiya which is still enjoying great success even up to these days. After watching the anime, I know why. In fact, Shurato is still many times better than Samurai Troopers.

Samurai Troopers has a very weak plot that cannot engage me. It took me more than 6 months to complete 39 episodes of the anime. The story begins with the Netherworld, led by Arago, which suddenly appears at Shinjuku to take over the mortal world. Arago is accompanied by 4 Warlords (and countless drones called Soldier of Doom) are opposed by our 5 Samurai Troopers. The first half of the series bores me to death with countless battles of any of the Warlords vs any of the Samurai Troopers. Each of them only has 1 special attack which keeps being repeated and somehow the 4 Warlords keep losing despite donning similar armors. At the end of the first half, Arago is successfully defeated when Ryo Sanada (the main character) is able to summon a new armor, called the Inferno Armor or Kikoutei, by combining the powers of all Samurai Troopers.

What happens on the second half is beyond imagination: the Netherworld is back with Arago still alive. What the heck -_- Other than the 4 Warlords, Arago has several powerful henchmen who are much stronger than the 4 useless Warlords but mysteriously never appear or even being mentioned on the first half the series. How lame. So it is a rinse and repeat for the second half on how Samurai Troopers will defeat Arago for the second time.

Characterisation is equally weak with bland personalities of the characters. Despite each person is associated with certain virtue (Ryo's is righteousness, Seiji's is grace, Toma's is wisdom, Shin's is trust, and Shu's is justice), these virtues are not clearly depicted in the characters' personalities. Okay, perhaps only Toma who is depicted as the most level-headed and "wise" one. Nasti is the girl among the main cast and I am quite surprised that she is not a damsel in distress. She is very useful as she provides a lot of information with regards to the history of armors. Jun serves as an irritating little boy who I don't know why he is even included as the side kick. Byakuen the tiger also does not seem to play a crucial role. 

As the story develops, it is revealed that many thousand years ago, Arago was defeated by Kaos who split Arago's armor to 9 armors. 5 armors are those donned by Samurai Troopers while 4 are corrupted and are used by the 4 Warlords. Basically Arago wants all these 9 armors to fight one another and gain strength because that indirectly makes him stronger as these armors are him afterall. The 4 Warlords used to be good and each also has a virtue. This makes them somewhat equal to our main Samurai Troopers and it does not make sense that the 4 Warlords keep losing. 1 of the Warlords, Anubis, repents and take place Kaos' place. Without the armor, Anubis surprisingly becomes much stronger than he used to be when he was a Warlord. It seems that when you become a good person, you will somehow be much stronger o_0

Anubis dies in the end and hands over his armor to Kayura who is Arago's strongest subordinate. Kayura is revealed to be the last descendant of Kaos' clan who is brainwashed by Arago. That explains why she is so powerful. In the of the TV series, Kayura and the 3 surviving Warlords decide to remain in the Netherworld to rebuild it and prevent it from attacking the mortal world. Literally what the fuck ending the whole series.

After the TV series, there are 3 OVAs: New York Gaiden (2 episodes), Kikoutei Densetsu (4 episodes), and Message (5 episodes) which are still unable to salvage the series.

New York Gaiden takes place in New York. Seiji is kidnapped by another random enemy who misuse his armor to attack civilians. This act is caught on TVs and the 4 Samurai Troopers fly over to New York to rescue Seiji.

Kikoutei Densetsu is the most exciting part of the whole series and OVA although in the end, the story also does not quite make sense. A new character, Mukala, is introduced. He comes from Africa and has the black Kikoutei. He can teleport to Japan as he aims to destroy Samurai Troopers' white Kikoutei. It is revealed that Kikoutei is so powerful that it can annihilate the whole world. These armors seem to have their own desire to keep on fighting, grow stronger, and in the end destroy the world. This OVA ends with both Kikoutei armors fight and destroy each other.

Message introduces another character, Suzunagi who wants to control the 5 armors, summon Kikoutei armor and destroy the whole world as revenge. Message begins quite interestingly with Seiji finding a book which tells stories that exactly resembles all the fights that Samurai Troopers have gone through. This makes our heroes rather emo as they are wondering whether their lives have been foretold according to this book. A little of flashback brings us to Suzunagi's childhood when her whole family is killed somehow because of these armors and that is how she wants a revenge. I honest don't know what is going on but in the end, Suzunagi becomes good again after being reunited with her mother's spirit and the Samurai Troopers get new armors. Does it make sense? I think it does not. Lol..

The final reason which makes Samurai Troopers suck is how lousy the armors are. Saint Seiya has cool armors based on the various constellations and Shurato has cool armors based on Hindu mythology. Samurai Troopers armors are based on elements such as fire, water, wind, etc but the design of the armors do not even incorporate any of these elements. The armors look boring and too generic. I believe Samurai Troopers is intended to be a shonen genre for teenage boys who will not be impressed with boring action stuff: only 1 attack per person and recycled fighting scenes.

Truthfully, I regret the 8 months I spend to watch this crap, man! Haha.. Having said that, I am still interested in getting their action figures from Bandai. Too bad they are limited edition and the prices are not justifiable. There are a lot of great artwork but Samurai Troopers does not even have a proper artbook!! Jeez.. Damn irritating.. I bought a lot of Samurai Troopers artbooks and most of them are screenshots from the anime. So where do those awesome pictures online come from sia!!

The Maze Runner

Let me start this with a warning for spoilers as this movie will only be released in the West on the 19th September. I am quite lucky to be somewhere where the movie opens on 11 September. But wait... 11 September is tomorrow. How could I be writing a review today on the 10th? Aha! I actually watched it yesterday.

To celebrate its 7th birthday, Golden Village (GV) held an event called The Maze Runner Great Escape. On top of early screening of the movie, participants get to enjoy pre-screening activities/games, hot snacks, drinks, instant photography session, GV goodie bag, and complementary movie pass for the upcoming Book of Life. All of these just for $25 which is reasonable considering a movie ticket cost $8.50 on a weekday.

I have never participated in this kind of "premiere" event so I was quite curious to attend this since I am also quite curious to watch the movie thanks to the trailers played before X-Men and Guardian of the Galaxy earlier this year. I was expecting merchandises related to the movie from the goodie bag and the games/activity. Alas, it was disappointing as all the freebies were rather rubbish. The first station dubbed the "Fear Factor" which was basically an instant lucky dip with crappy prizes of either a canned food or a free digital copy of 8days magazine -_-. The second station called "Break the Maze", I was supposed to solve a paper maze with a prize of Soy Energy Bar. Totally what the crap.. The food was 5 pieces of chicken nuggets and more pieces of potato wedges and they did not taste like nuggets or potatoes. The drink was canned drinks called ok ok which despite having a huge colourful banner of 10+ flavours, there were only 4 flavours available. The instant photography was also rubbish as it was taken with a handphone and the main purpose was for publicity as we have to tag and post it on instagram or something. I was expecting something cool to keep as a memento of this event. The ultimate bummer was the goodie bag which only contains GV popcorn-shaped small pillow and GV popcorn container. So basically NOTHING related to the movie merchandise as what I expected.

The learning point is that if you want to for this kind of thing, to make it worthwhile, you have to join the stupid game onstage. Then you can win things like movie poster, more free movie passes, etc. Anyway it was a rather bullshit event. Despite the movie was full house, 90% was disengaged from the activity. Just before the end of the pre-event, participants were asked to go on stage to take a photo with Mr Popcorn, who is basically GV mascot, to celebrate the 7th birthday and only like 20 people were willing to take picture together.

Moving on to the movie itself now and I am writing from a movie-watcher perspective entirely as I have not read the book yet. The story is quite intense: in a dystopian future, young boys (1 boy per month) are mind wiped, abducted and sent to a place called the Glade which is surrounded by giant maze. The only way out seems to be through the maze but the maze is inhabited by creatures called by the Grievers who roam at night. The maze entrance will close at night to prevent these creatures from entering the Glade. The boys (they call themselves the Gladers) have their own tasks to sustain the community and a group of them called the Runners have to enter the maze every morning to map out the maze in order to find an exit. They have to return before the maze closes in the evening and nobody has ever survived a night inside the maze, presumably killed by the Grievers.

Things start to change with arrival of the main character, Thomas, who basically speeds up the whole story in a ridiculous pace. It was revealed that the other boys have been trying to map the maze for 3 years and have not been able to find any progress towards the exit. After Thomas arrival, the maze is solved and we reach the ending of the movie in like 3 days?? What the??

While the overall theme sounds engaging, how the story progresses does not quite make sense. One day, Minho and Alby enter the maze. Alby gets stung by the Grievers and Minho has to carry him. Because of that, they are unable exit the maze before the end of the day. As the maze is closing, Thomas decides to enter the maze. You will be asking "For what??". He just arrived so what he could do in that situation? Bleah.. Because of Thomas, the 3 survive the night in the maze and even manage to kill a Griever.

Then a girl called Teresa was sent to the Glade which causes a big ruckus as no girls has been sent to the Glade before. She holds a note saying that she would be the last one sent ever. Thomas suggests to re-enter the maze to analyse the dead Griever to get some clues. With a canister obtained from the Griever's body, he somehow manages to find the "exit". For no reason, after this discovery, the maze no longer closes at night and the Grievers attack the Glade. Not knowing what to do, Thomas decides to stab himself with one of the Griever's metal parts as getting stung by a Griever seem to initiate the process called the Changing which somehow brings back the memories before one was abducted and sent to the Glade. Again this move does not seem to make sense because people don't seem survive the Changing process. How is Thomas sure that we won't die by stabbing himself? Bleah..

As the main character, he survives the Changing and he reveals that both Teresa and him are actually employees of the company who sent the guys to the Glade. He has no idea why the 2 of them eventually got sent too. Realising that there is something out there, the climax is when they all decide to re-enter the maze and get through the "exit" somehow. The ending is a cliffhanger and despite exiting the maze, the survivors still don't know what is going on.

I think there is a lot of potential with the story but eventually there are too many plot holes and unanswered questions. They have so many Gladers and yet only 5 or 6 play prominent roles. I feel that they can make a better story with utilising more characters. In addition, because there are too many people in the crowd, I can't really be bothered when some unknown got killed by the Grievers. It takes away some of the potentially more heart-wrenching part. As the only girl, I expect Teresa to play a special role to solve the maze. Well, she does not so I have no idea why her character is even introduced into the whole plot in the first place. By the way, no romance or love stories to warrant her presence too.

Nonetheless, the action scenes are quite intense and enjoyable too. As the title suggests, there are plenty of running and the running and shouting are quite believable too. The lack of make up seems to help too. All the pores and imperfection on the actors' faces are pretty obvious which is quite sensical because you can't possibly be looking pretty and perfect when living under such harsh environment. And by the way, I think Kaya Scodelario (who plays Teresa) really resembles Kristen Stewart (Bella from Twilight series).

If I have to rate it somehow, I think that this is just a so-so movie. Perhaps 3 out of 5 stars. Yet, one thing which I find very interesting is how the whole setup resembles our real lives even though we are not living in a dystopia. You stay and you remain in the shit place. You escape and you are simply thrown to the next shit in life. So yeah, our life is like The Maze Runner indeed.

Mid-Autumn Festival

I always thought that Mid-Autumn Festival would always be on a weekend but that is not the case. Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival. No mooncake for me this year because I am already very fat. Haha.. Alas a colleague brought some mooncakes today and I shamelessly ate quite a lot. Lol.. Sadly, I missed out the green tea one which I believe was the most delicious since it was the first one to go.

Today is the start of the school holiday and my expectations were pretty high for a quieter day. It was indeed quite quiet in the morning but it still ended late in the afternoon. Sigh.. I decided to eat McD today since it has been quite a few months since my last meal there. Too bad that the new twilight menu was not as special as its name or its look. I bought the classic twilight and it tasted rather generic like other McD burgers. Bleah..

Rainy days.. 7th months.. Tiredness... I never run out of excuses to start my jogging. Bleah.. I signed up for Standard Chartered Marathon later this December and it is just a matter of time for me to start training for it. I don't aim to win. I just aim to complete the run without shaming myself. Despite the name 'marathon', I am only signing up for 10km run. Haha.. Sinful fattening meal was another tactic to drive me to jog tonight but it almost failed again as I was too tired on my journey home.

Then shit happened.. Just mere seconds after I entered my room, my phone rang. I knew I should not have answered it because it was about my pharmacy fridge alarm being triggered! Shit! I am the 3rd in the contact list and obviously the person could not get the first two on the list. Bleah.. Since I answered, obviously I could not say no so I had to come back to office. Haiz.. As expected, it was a false alarm. Ironically, it was good that it was a false alarm, at least I did not need to crack my head trying to rescue those insulins and vaccines.

So hurray.. because of the fridge alarm, I returned home hot and sweaty and I decided to just jog. That was the first time in more than half a year. I have not run since I moved house o_0 As expected, my stamina was crap. I could only run for 5 minutes at a time before 'resting' by walking. It is going to be a gargantuan task trying to build up the stamina to last me 10km.

I feel like chickening out of the marathon T_T

Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno

The first Kenshin live action movie was a huge success that justifies more live action movies. The awesome Kyoto arc is chosen and the story is long enough to be split into 2 movies. With the same cast members and production team, the good and the bad are not too different from the first live action movie.

I am not going to write about the plot as it is similar to the anime and manga. Kyoto Inferno runs almost 2 and a half hours and obviously it ends on a cliff hanger. The movie ends somewhere after burning of Kyoto and despite the title as such, there is very little burning in the movie.

The cinematography for the mass fighting is still awesome and I am quite surprised that the rating is still PG-13 despite the splashes of blood everywhere. I was expecting plenty of exciting duels and I am disappointed because all the duels suck except for Kenshin vs Soujiro. Both are light-weight fighters whose techniques rely more on skills and agility, rather than brute force, and they depict these spot on. Sadly, despite the numerous duels, there was only 1 "special" technique featured when Kenshin defeats Cho.

Ironically, despite this being a second movie, there is not much improvement in characterisation of the old casts. I guess I am sort of used to them as I could bear with them. Takeru Satoh is still unable to nail the funny side of Kenshin but he is quite awesome when Kenshin goes into the killing mode. I am quite angry that Sanosuke (my favourite character) is somewhat relegated to comic relief. He is not as strong as Kenshin but he is strong enough to be Kenshin's sidekick but this is not what depicted in the movie. Kaoru still feels as distant to Kenshin as in the first movie and Yahiko only has 1 cheeky line in the whole movie. That is so unlike him.

The good news is most of the new characters in this second movie is awesome. Shishio, Aoshi, and Cho are crazy and sadistic as how they are supposed to be. Although I dislike Hojo, this guy playing him is awesome to capture his diabolical character. Misao's cheerful and outgoing personality are spot on and she is pleasant to watch. Soujiro's seemingly friendly but dangerous demeanor is also perfect. However, personally I think they should choose someone cuter to play Soujiro. In the anime and manga, Soujiro is still likeable despite being an antagonist. This guy playing Soujiro makes Soujiro irritating with his fake smiles instead of like-able. I am looking forward to Yumi but she is very ugly here T_T Her thick lipstick is a trademark but on real person, it makes the actress have a Joker smile instead of making her pretty. Bleah.. aah and that kimono should fall lower on the shoulders sia... Haha...

In the end, I still left the cinema as a happy fanboy. It was the same feeling that I left the first movie. Although there are parts which are not up to my expectations or imagination, overall it is still an enjoyable movie that does justice to the original manga and anime. It gets me excited to wait for the part 2 this October but it is not good enough to tempt me to keep a copy of the movie with me.