Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

I finished watching this before I went home for my birthday. My depressed mood made me look for something de-stressing and what a coincidence that Youtube has the full series complete with the English sub. The story and characters stay true to the manga but the effect is quite different. I find the manga very hilarious and can break me into laughter. The anime invoked a less subdued emotion from me although I am not sure if my mood makes me rather biased. I guess the format also plays a role. In the manga, each page feels like a comic strip and this allows the story from one page to the next not necessarily be connected. This becomes a weakness when translated into an anime. The scenes in the anime feel rather jumpy because of the lack of overarching story. 

I am glad that the anime faithfully follows the manga and hence retains whatever that makes the manga enjoyable to read. The mangaka makes the characters believable as each of them has their own quirkiness and sometimes the quirkiness is blown over the top for comic relief purpose. It is actually a good thing that the mangaka does not mind making the characters lame and ridiculous. The voice actors are doing excellent job too as each character gets their own share of serious lines as well as ridiculous lame lines.

With no overarching story, there is really no plot here. It is just telling a story of a group of school friends revolving around Nozaki-kun who happens to be a mangaka. With the manga is still ongoing, I don't expect to have a solid ending with the anime. However, the last 1 minute of the final episode is really a cliff hanger!! Grrah!! I am not usually into love story but I was really rooting for Chiyo in this last minute and I nearly fell over my chair when Nozaki misheard what Chiyo said and while leaning in to whisper he replied "I feel the same. I love fireworks.". Raaage!! Chiyo's laughter after that sounded like she was trying to hide her tears. Sob sob T_T

There are 6 additional short special episodes of about 3 minutes each. They are bundled for the DVD. I can only find episodes 4-6 with English subtitle in Youtube :( But yeah, glad that they still continue with the humour.

Captain America: Civil War

The hype is real and just like all overhyped things, I am bracing myself for a disappointment. So I am not too disappointed with Captain America: Civil War which is actually rather disappointing. The movie actually starts pretty strong with great action scene for the Lagos mission. Unfortunately, the momentum cannot be maintained and things just going downhill from there.

Although I am expecting great fighting scenes from a superhero movie, the story needs to be up to a certain standard to join everything together and I think this movie sorts of fail. Things still make sense until Sokovia Accords but starts to break apart and it ends with a big bummer. I can't believe that all the huge fights between 2 groups of superheroes are all caused by a guy who wants a revenge. All the 'civil war' is not over disagreement to Sokovia Accords but merely over Winter Soldier. It is so a stupid and lame. In fact, how the 2 factions are formed also does not make sense and seems to be purely fanservice. I have no idea how Hawkeye who is supposed to be retired then decides to join Cap's team. I don't see how he gets Antman in the first place just like how Tony recruits Spidey. Spidey is just a teenager and to have him fighting with veterans who save the world from aliens and crazy AI, it is not a very wise decision. 

The big fight at the airport seems to be fight that everyone is looking for but it is not as great as I imagine or expect it is going to be. The fight seems rather pointless and does not invoke the kind of emotion when you see a big fight to save the world. They try to insert a lot of funny banters in between this fight and although it made us laugh, it makes the fight like classmates pretending to be competitive during PE class and it is making the fight seems pointless. To me, it is a failed copycat attempt to follow what Joss Whedon did with the Avengers movies. So yeah, movie director makes a difference.

The fight also successfully allows each superhero to show off their powers. Unfortunately, some characters are badly written. The worst example is Iron Man. At the beginning, his aim to protect the Avengers, even those who oppose Sokovia Accords. At the end, he does not seem to be that bothered that Cap's team is jailed and he snaps when he realised his parents were killed by the brainwashed Winter Soldier. I think Tony Stark is not someone who will so easily succumb to personal revenge over the bigger picture. Vision is another badly written character. For someone who should be wise and in possession of mind stone, he seems to be lost in thoughts and fails to see the bigger picture in the whole conflict. It is a complete reversal from Age of Ultron in which he seems to be able to see things from higher perspective. It is also ridiculous to see Scarlet Witch being imprisoned. Although she has trouble controlling her powers, she is very powerful (at least in the comics) that I don't think she will just accept to be jailed.

I don't really like Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther but Black Panther's character is well written. He is a hot-headed prince who wants to take a revenge to his father's murderer but as he learns what is going on, he starts to act like a king and that is how King of Wakanda should behave. As the movie is about Captain America, perhaps I am a bit biased towards him. I am not sure if it is his character to break into a prison to rescue his "team" but his love letter to Tony at the ends seems apt: we may have disagreements now but when you have problems and need us in the future, feel free to call us.

To be objective, I think this movie is rather sucky. I am not sure if all the hype causes me to have a sky-high expectations. However, I left the cinema feeling bored and sleepy. I was not expecting so much from Captain America: Winter Soldier and although there are boring parts, I left the cinema feeling pretty good and enjoying myself.

This is the first time I tried watching in D-Box format and I think the experience is quite lame. Lol. The vibrating/shaking chair is like going for a 3D/4D arena in theme parks but the arena lasts for 2 hours. But it is definitely not something I am interested to try again or I will recommend.

Toxic

Just 1 week back in work and it no longer feels that I was just back from holiday. Work is getting too toxic and at times like this, the intention of quitting just grows. My feelings towards work remain the same. The work itself is bearable. It is the colleagues that make it unbearable. I only have 1 head, 2 eyes, 2 hands, 2 ears, 1 mouth, and 1 brain. I can only be at one place at one time. I cannot be doing and looking after so many things at the same time while the rest are happily sitting inside the office. I also have my admin duties that I need to do. If I am fighting fire throughout the whole day, how am I supposed to clear my admin duties. Bleah.. Some are duties that can be done by the rest but because they all cannot be bothered, again they fall on my plate. Jeez...

During this stressful period, I saw a post on facebook about a toxic work environment being defined as the need to shout/scream/scold people to get them work. That describes my work environment aptly. And if you think there is a joy in shouting/screaming/scolding, you are dead wrong. It is toxic for everyone including the screamer. A few more months to go until my bond ends and I really need to start planning my new job. I already sort of asking people here and there and I am prepared to accept that no point looking at pay. Even if I change, the pay will be comparably bad. I should look for happiness instead. No point talking about this now since I cannot do anything about it but ironically, it is such thoughts that make me survive to look forward a few more months.

I weighed myself yesterday and I lost 4 kg. That is how bad the past week has been. It seems that all the rubbish I gained when I was home is finally shed off. Haha.. Anyway, that is an excuse for me to treat myself with Burger King yesterday. I have been aiming for the Korean King that has been promoted since before I went for holiday and yesterday was the first and last time. Lol.

Yesterday was a crazy Sunday for me. I woke up at 5am and it took me close to 6 hours to catch up with my missed Japanese lessons. In the end, I did too much because the lesson did not go as fast as I expected so the second homework that I did was not even due yet. Bleah... After Japanese lesson, I decided to be a good boy and attend Mass. Lol. I then went to MBS to the Civil War festival. I thought it was at skating rink and only after realising there was nothing there that I checked that the festival was at the event plaza. I walked that far and that long for nothing. Blah.. I was contemplating not to see this festival at all and I should have listened to my heart. It was rubbish. The limited edition Steve Rogers cosbaby had to be bought as a package with a T-shirt. I am not going to waste $68 when usual cosbaby is only about $20. I then went to Suntec City to collect my silver proof Peter Rabbit coin to commemorate 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter. Again my laziness to check location caused me to waste time and energy walking around. I thought the Singapore Mint shop number was at 200-something but after I only saw shop numbers of 300s and 400s. Only then I checked the directory and the shop number was at 400 something. Grrr..

I am so tired please give me a break :(

29

1 week passed just like a blink of the the eye and my holiday is soon to be over. Sigh... I usually feel emo on the last few days before flying back, especially with tidying up my comics and figurines cupboards. I am done with those so I am feeling somewhat more relaxed.

When you are so close to the 30s, birthday is no longer a happy occasion. I guess it is part of aging and even my body no longer can hide my age. Gone are the days when people say I am baby face and even conversation topic from strangers (like the barber who cut my hair earlier this week) is about marriage. With the clock continuously ticking, I am feeling quite burdened with a lot of things especially about my future. Should I stay or should I change job? Or should I go for further studies? Should I start behaving less selfish and start thinking of ways to find a girlfriend? It is quite a given that I have to take a better care of my health especially pertaining to healthy eating and regular exercise but it is always difficult to commit. Bleah..

Facebook is full of fake friends so I try not to bother about how many birthday messages I received. But honestly, I feel quite said to have less than 10% of my friends' list wishing me birthday. Haha.. not unexpected since I cannot be bothered to wish others birthday too since wishing birthday through facebook is just out of courtesy. To my surprise, I received birthday messages through private whatsapp messages from the closer group of friends. So yeah.. hehe...

I joined AAA global fanclub in January and I am quite amazed with their gestures for my birthday. They sent a special link to get personalised birthday messages from the band members as well as a desktop wallpaper with a happy birthday and the link can only be accessed on the birthday and the day after. I have passed the stage of fanboying so I don't really care if these messages are really written by the members or actually by the management. But I have to say that these are quite nice gestures.

Quite a bad photoshop editing, especially Hidaka's hands. Lol..

Last day liao.. I try not to be too emo T_T

Not like usual

My holiday had a pretty rocky start. This is the first time that I did not bring any of my toys home. Both my luggage and hand carry were full of iron steamer for my dad. He did not force me to bring it home as he is planning to come to Singapore in May. But I bought it for him and what's the point of buying it for him if I have to keep it until May? Hence I brought it home so that he could use it as soon as possible.

I am pretty upset with myself as when I took out some of my figurines to display at home, I broke Kurama's whip. I don't know if it is meant to break or I was too rough when I was removing the plastic blister. I did not feel that I was too rough but I was in a rush in doing that. Haiz..

The unopened super glue which I am keeping stock (and I don't know how long it has been on my table) was already unusable. The glue particles were already bonding with one another and the texture of the glue was already gooey instead of being liquid. So I had to wait until yesterday to buy a new super glue. Sadly, it does not work. The glue caused some erosion to the broken parts that there is very little contact space for the acrylate glue to work. Bleah.. My 2-part epoxy glue is in Singapore so that is one alternative that I can do but I have to wait until the next time I am home. The other alternative is.. to buy the bootleg version of the figurine just for the whip. Shame on me.. Surprisingly I could not find any bootleg on eBay so I had to utilise taobao.com. Just for the record, I am not a supporter of bootleg but when it comes to occasions like this, bootleg is my only choice. Adding all the shipping fee, it will cost me about $30 and that is not cheap considering I bought the original one for $70. That was 3 years ago.. Sigh..  Anyway he is out of production and now the original ones are selling for like $200-$300. That's crazy. And what is crazier? This idiot who broke his whip :(

Grrrah.. I have never felt this lousy for a holiday.. I find my hobby to be very frustrating because of the damage but it is really a guilty pleasure since I really cannot let go of my hobby anyway despite this painful experience. Sigh...

Weekend accomplishment

I finally completed my Japan Trip photobook last night. That means I can start on my Australia Trip photobook this coming week and finish it when I am back home next week. I wanted to sleep earlier but in the end I slept at 4am because of the games from Jimmy Fallon's show. They are hilarious, there are so many of them, and I am still not done.

I finally went for mass at the newly renovated Church of Sts Peter & Paul. Before that, I went to Asanoya bakery again as both are at Queen Street and today I was lucky to get the Matcha Salted Egg croissant. There were only 5 on display and I am so happy I quickly joined the queue. I bought 2 and the people behind me wiped out everything. I promised I am not going to be tempted with any salted egg stuff anymore. Haha.. What does that mean?

The matcha salted egg croissant is actually damn good!! Initially I thought they were pretty small for something that costs $4.90 but hey, the filling is generous. I will even say it is filled to the brim. When I took a bite, the filling was overflowing from somewhere else. So yeah, it is that good. The matcha flavour is strong but I could not taste that much salted egg flavour. That's the my reason of not going to be tempted with anything salted egg anymore. My expectation is for strong salty salted egg flavour but it seems that for all these bakery fillings, they always mix it with custard and they end up tasting sweet.

I am looking forward to see the Church of Sts Peter & Paul after renovation but I have to say I am disappointed. It is great to see the church looking all white and new but the interior reminds me the interior of St Teresa's Church. The new look of the brown wooden windows stand out like an eye sore against all the white around. The pew is uncomfortable when you are supposed to kneel and pray. Mass started a bit late at 430pm instead of 420pm and it lasted for more than 1 hour. It was also definitely more crowded as compared to pre-renovation days. Well, I guess everyone enjoys aircon. So yeah aircon is one of the things which is definitely better after the renovation. The audio system is definitely better and louder so despite the longer-than-expected mass duration, I kinda enjoyed the homily.

Anyway, I felt a bit irrated when the Japanese lesson time was changed as my regular Sunday schedule no longer fit. Now with renovation is done, I think I can just change my Sunday to Japanese lesson first and going for mass at Sts Peter & Paul.

Loosen up

April is here and birthday month is time to loosen things up, especially purse and stomach. Haha.. With Lent is over, I am somehow getting all the urge to start binge eating back. I even bought 7 salted egg mini croissant from Bread Talk despite having to avoid egg for health purpose. Since all the hoo-hah about salted egg stuff, I have never tried once. I tried to go Antoinette twice and returned empty handed. The queue was too long at the first visit and the food had not arrived for the second visit. I also went to Asanoya this afternoon after seeing their matcha salted egg croissant but no stock :( Sian.. In the past week, I had eated 4 packs of Kettle potato chips too and I have yet to have any fast food although I am craving for KFC popcorn chicken quite badly. Lol. I learn to limit my diet for forever. Aiming for only a certain time period, like Lent, results in this kind of rebound.

Next thing: shopping. I only spent less than $500 since January to fulfill my toys, anime, and manga hobby and I am proud of that. Haha.. I have been waiting for April since CDJapan will give me birthday points to offset my purchase. HLJ had spring sale and I thought I would purchase on 31 March to time it with my credit card bills but all of the toys I wanted to get were sold out by then. Fuck man! The one I am really sad about is Saint Seiya Myth Cloth display which was on sale from 5000 JPY to 750 JPY only.

This morning I bought Aladdin Infinity box set from eBay. I don't play it but want it none the less to get the Aladdin & Jasmine as figures. I have been aiming for it from Amazon for the past 1+ years but it is not available for shipping to Singapore. So the moment I saw one on eBay with cheap shipping, I clicked the buy button. I also started looking at Calvin & Hobbes complete collection again. I want it since the first time it was released but have been putting my wish on hold since binding is bad and the storage space issue I am facing. I also want the illustrated version of Harry Potter although I am confused why the US version cost few hundred dollars. Anyway I will be patient and wait for all 7 books to be illustrated as I am pretty sure they will make another bundle or boxed set eventually.

I went to Singapore International Coin Fair this afternoon. My main aim was to get the commemorative coin of Peter Rabbit. On Singapore Mint website, it was shown as selling fast but when I reached the fair, I was told that I need to pre-order for that. Whaaat..??? So I ended up getting the cupro-nickle version first. I wanted the silver one because it has some colours on the coins. The website shows it as sold out now so perhaps I am too late? Sigh..  I also pre-ordered all 3 Batman v Superman medallions. I was planning to choose 1 out of the 3 designs but I guess impulse took over and I filled in 1 for each. As I am not really a fan of DC, I hope I lose out for this PO. But please don't let me lose out on the Peter Rabbit T_T

The Young Messiah

I am very surprised that this movie is already out since I do not see it around. I only find that it is showing at Cathay and it seems that there is no more screening after this Wednesday. I decided to watch it today and only 5 people were in the cinema. Lol. I was worried that I might be the only one and they would cancel the screening.

The Young Messiah tells the story of the Holy Family's return from Egypt back to Nazareth after the death of King Herod who wanted to kill baby Jesus. Things do not really change as Herod's son hear about child Jesus' miracles and tasks his centurion to capture Jesus. In the Bible, there is only one story on Jesus' childhood which is when he was missing at the temple. It is quite a gamble to create a movie about Jesus when there is no mention about it in the Bible and the odd likely favours disappointment.

Let's not discuss the story as anything related to the Bible is definitely boring. Lol. Either it is boring because we are already familiar with the story or it is boring when it tells something completely out of the Bible. Let's talk about how it makes me feel about the movie. I think the movie is great as the story is quite believe-able. The 7 year-old Jesus is not aware of His being the Son of God and hence is confused with what he can do. We also get to see Jesus' cousin, James. We know that James is a holy person who became Bishop of Jerusalem eventually. Despite this, his depiction as a kid here is also believe-able. He is irritated, and perhaps somewhat jealous, with Jesus. But still, they will talk and play with each other. Boys will always be boys.

With young Jesus not realising his God-hood yet, I feel that the focus on the story is on Joseph and Mary. It is mostly about their struggle of raising up Jesus: they trust in God but sometimes things are getting too tough that they are worried that they are not strong enough to carry out what God wants them to do, challenges from people around them who may not fully believe in what happen to them so far or suspicious with Jesus' miracles, not able to answer Jesus' questions yet as he may still be too young to understand things which adults cannot even comprehend. In fact, the movie can be summarised as what Joseph says "How do we explain God to His own Son?".

Put me in their shoes and I think I can empathise what they were going through. It gives me a new perspective to the story of finding of Jesus in the temple. Joseph and Mary's worry may not simply like how parents feel when they lose their child in shopping mall but they are worried about Jesus' safety. Most importantly, it gives me a new perspective on the kind of faith that Joseph and Mary have. We may think that it must be cool to have the honour of taking care of God's only son etc but from what this movie is telling, it is something full of challenges, trials, and tribulations.

Despite showing Joseph and Mary's human struggles, the movie does not show them succumb to human's emotion. Mary never doubts, never complains, and never gets angry to God. What she feels is if she will be strong enough to carry out God's mission for her. Joseph does not have any spoken words recorded in the Bible so I was quite worried if the movie will somehow 'destroy' my impression with his words. Thank God, the movie is faithful to show him as the protector of the Holy Family and support both Mary and Jesus when bad things come.

The movie ends with Mary telling young Jesus on the story of the Annunciation and asking him not to manifest his power until the time has come. Fast forward to wedding at Cana and no wonder Jesus 'scolded' Mary and told her that his hour has not come yet. Haha.. Last time that was what Mary told him ma... Quite plausible right?

Despite all the negative reviews, I am glad and I feel blessed that I watched this. I don't watch this for entertainment purpose and I am not watching this to verify its accuracy (there is no verification needed in the first place as there is no written evidence of Jesus' childhood). However, I am glad that I feel recharged spiritually to see how the Holy Family could possibly struggle and yet remain holy and faithful. It definitely inspires me to press on to follow the Way of Life no matter how shitty life can be. For that, I like this even better than Risen that I watched last week.

Easter joy

Easter feels different this year. Since last year, I started to attend the 7am Easter Sunday mass and waking up that early is usually not a good day for me. Last year I came very close to the starting time and although I still could get a seat, it was pretty crowded for a Sunday morning. So this year I decided to come earlier. I was surprised that I woke up feeling very on this morning and I managed to leave house at 630am.

The joyful Easter is not only felt by me. I feel that the priest was more energetic and excited than usual that he even forgot to incense the bible before the Gospel. Lol. He did that after the Gospel reading ended. The altar boys, however, seemed to be still sleepy. One of them dropped the stick for splashing of the holy water and another one rang the bell at wrong timing. Another thing which surprised me was the choir whose members are quite young. I always associate Sunday 7am mass as a mass for old people as young people will stay in bed until late on Sundays. They sang loudly and with full of spirit and the energy was infectious. It made me consider of going for 7am mass now since the timing of Japanese lesson has changed too.

I always enjoy Christmas but I usually associate Easter with doom and gloom, particularly after Good Friday. Only today I realise that there are a lot of nice Easter and uplifting Easter songs. In fact, my perspective between the 2 events sort of changed right now. Christmas songs which are more upbeat and happy tend to be more secular and about holiday and Santa Claus while Christmas songs which are more religious tend to be more mellow. At Christmas, we are happy in anticipation of something i.e the birth of Jesus or the coming of Jesus. It is a different kind of happiness when compared to Easter when we are happy for something that has already happened i.e Christ is already risen.

Going back a bit to the Good Friday, I realised that usually there are 5 masses on Sundays, including 1 sunset mass on Saturdays. However, there are only 2-3 Good Friday services. Does the church expect 40-60% of regular Sunday mass goers not to attend Good Friday service? I felt so irritated that the church was so crowded and it made the whole atmosphere not conducive. Last year I came almost on the dot and I had to stand. So this year I came about 15 minutes earlier and there were only pockets of seats left. I know it is so petty to complain about these inconveniences when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. I was surprised that I felt more irritated this time by the people around me who had to stand as compared to last year when I was the one standing. Bleah.. Anyway I saw my friend's photo at another church where people were denied entry because the church was already too crowded. One of the comments mentioned something similar happened on the Maundy Thursday evening at another church. Seriously man!

Anyway, wishing everyone a very happy Easter and may this Easter spirit last :)

Samurai High School

Synopsis:

Mochizuki Kotaro is a cowardly 17 year old high school student who spends most of his time goofing around. One fateful day, on his way home from school, he came across a mysterious history library. The librarian lent him a history book about a samurai from Edo era who has the same name, Mochizuki Kotaro. Since then, when faced with danger, Kotaro will turn into a samurai. What does the samurai want by travelling 400 years into the future and meet his descendant?

My opinion:

I started watching this in November last year and just finished the last 2 episodes tonight. There are only 9 episodes in total. Lol. So yeah, that is how bad the drama is. I can even watch while playing online games on my phone or tablet.

I am expecting this to be a comedy but the supposed funny parts turn out lame instead of hilarious. It seems that the actors are overacting for the funny scenes and they just turn out not funny at all.

There is no plot at all. Each episode is completely unrelated and the 'conflict' presented in each episode is too trivial and the conflict resolution is always too abrupt and forced. There is no overarching plot to tie the series at all. Kotaro wants to find out what the samurai wants but everything that he does does not have any relevance to this particular purpose. Until the end, the samurai's purpose of 'getting' justice is also lame.

The relationships among the characters are bad. I have never watched a series with a school theme where the main character hardly interacts with the classmates. Kotaro's relationships with Nakamura and Ai are lukewarm at best and Mochizuki family dynamic from an episode to the next is like flipping a pancake. The teachers also do not provide any educational value or learning point to the audience also.

In short, the series has no purpose, no story, and no message to deliver.

The only credit I will give is to Haruma Miura (who plays Kotaro) and Yu Shirota (who plays Nakamura). Haruma Miura plays both lame and samurai Kotaro and it is amazing to see how he plays these 2 characters with completely opposite personality. He can be goofy, can be stern, can be scary, but one thing he cannot do well is to be emotional and tear-inducing. By the way he plays Eren in Attack on Titan movies and I think he is pretty bad as Eren. Lol. Yu Shirota surprised me by playing this wimpy character as usually he plays strong and serious characters like Tezuka (Prince of Tennis Live Action), Shinjo (Rookies), Kagurazaka (the first Hana Kimi). Even when he is being adamant during police interrogation, he still shouts in a wimpy manner instead of being manly type of shouting. So he is always being in his character.

My afterthoughts:

None. This is the first school themed movie that I find disappointing. No moral lessons, no friendship or family tear jerking moments, and nothing memorable. It is actually extremely disappointing because given the themes of samurai and school, they have a great potential to make a great series.