Random Thursday~ Japanese Christmas and... Silent Hill?

Good morning everyone! How is the week going~?
I know that Anemone has hit some rough times, so I'll post a link to something that I think will make her smile a bit... Here is a beautiful song about superheroes. It's by one of my all time favorite comedy singers, Stephen Lynch.
Of course, I also love Flight of the Concords, Garfunkel and Oates, and They Might be Giants... But this song just makes my day. It is EXTREMELY inappropriate, but it's hilarious.
~~~
Well now, I dunno what to talk about. Truth be told, that's why I haven't been posting as much, haha...
Hmm, I guess I'll talk about Japanese culture a bit.
You know how in America, Christmas is a time to be with family and New Years is more of a date holiday? Well, in Japan it's reversed! Typically, you will go out on a date on Christmas day or Christmas eve, and enjoy it. On New Year's eve, one will typically join their family in a visit to a shrine at midnight. There, you pray and ask the gods (of Shinto, of course) to bless the New Year... Sort of like a New Year's resolution. After that, you go home and eat Soba noodles with your family, but you have to slurp the noodles. If they break, then the New Year will, supposedly, hold bad luck for the person who broke the noodle...
...
That sounds really... not appropriate.
Anyways, I always thought that was an interesting concept, and I would really love to experience New Year's in Japan.
~~~
Anyways, I really love the Silent Hill games. They are a lot of fun, but I regret to inform you that I never did play the originals... I really want to though, and once I get my PC up and running, I will definitely visit the town of Silent Hill~

I am sad to admit that I've only played Downpour... It only took 4 or 5 hours to beat. I liked it as a standalone game, but it would have been much better if it were longer.
Still, I wish I could play the originals right now~ I heard that Downpour is one of the worst Silent Hill games, but since it's the first one I've ever played, I didn't find it all that bad. It actually scared me 2 or 3 times!
I watched the first movie and the remake, I really liked the original... Pyramid Head is the ultimate badass~ In fact, he's about 10x more terrifying than the new guy, Bogeyman... Pyramid Head is... Well, he's just fucking creepy. Bogeyman is more like "RAWR I WILL KILL YOU AND EAT YOUR HEART!!!" And PH is all "Hm~ I'm gonna take my time~ Soon, you'll be BEGGING for death~ *creepy giggle*"
I dunno, that's how I see them.

Still though, I wouldn't want to meet either of these mofos in a dark alleyway at night... Or during the day for that matter.

  This picture made me laugh, and I'm not sure why, but I really liked it.

Adorable, right?

Yeah. That's about it I guess. Peace!
...
No, I'm never saying that again.
Bye everyone!

~Aggroe~

Aggroe's Back, Baby~

Good morning everyone! Did you have a fun Halloween?
Anemone and I were supposed to hang out, but I had no ride, so instead I went trick-or-treating with a friend, terrified some kids, and ate candy! 'Cause you're never too old for that!
It was hilarious, actually. For my costume I tore up a shirt and pants, covered  myself in fake blood, and dragged a baseball bat around... My friend went as the goddess Athena. There was one poor child who looked out the window and nearly had a heart attack... I shouldn't have laughed as hard as I did~

In other news, I have some playthroughs that I haven't uploaded yet. I have part 1 and 2 of an Ao Oni-esque game, Paranoiac, on my computer and nearly ready for Youtube. Then, I have a request, a playthrough of Homesick. It's a side scroller of epic proportions! Finally, I have part 2 of Monster Girl Quest. As a note on my translations, I'm actually done with tracks 1-10, but I'm waiting to see if track 1 will be taken down for copyright or not. We shall see.
...There's something I'm really excited about. June of 2014, I will be going back to Japan for a second time... But this time as a translator, not a student~!! Which is why I'm working on my Japanese so much~
I'm so fucking excited, you have no idea!
~~~
Today, I will be talking about an Anime that I recently finished AND teaching you all some Hiragana, one of the alphabets of Japanese!
The anime is, surprisingly, a slice-of-life... BUT it's also shounen! The reason I checked it out, actually, is because of that unique combo. It is called...

"Watashi ga Motenai no wa Dou Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui"! The title translates, literally, to "I'm Not Popular, and No Matter How You Think About it, You Guys are Bad" It makes more sense if you call it "It's Your Guys' Fault That I'm Not Popular".
...
The title is long, so it's usually called WataMoto. This anime... It is wonderful. The main character, Kuroki Tomoko, is hilariously socially awkward. She thinks that she'll be super popular in high school, and she isn't, so the episodes are all her attempts at talking to people, learning how to hang out, and a ton of other stuff...
Though much to the amusement of her viewers, she...

Tomoko's attempts at humor

...fails miserably.
I really like how, in this anime, the people look normal. No blue haired skinny big boobed girls, and no badass mysterious guys with a dark past.
Her younger brother's name is Tomoki, and he is in his last year of middle school. He is reeeeeally popular with girls and guys alike, and has friends to hang out with all the time.

Kuroki Tomoki

She has a friend from middle school who used to be super geeky who wore huge glasses and was generally just an anime nerd like Tomoko, but now she's super hot! Nice chest, contacts, fashionable clothes... And, she's got a boyfriend!... That's the bit that Tomoko hates the most~

Yuu-chan

This show is also gay/lesbian-friendly! Tomoko is, I'm pretty sure, madly in love (or lust) with Yuu-chan! There are many times where she wants to touch her, and not in the innocent sort of way~ Of course, it never happens, but it's pretty wonderful~!
...
Anemone and I agreed that Tomoko is pretty much the equivalent of us fused together and thrown into an anime.

...Or so she thinks~

Anyways, check it out here~

~~~
Hiragana lesson!
The song/video at this link will give you the pronounciation~
あいうえお  (A I U E O)
かきくけこ   (KA KI KU KE KO)
さしすせそ  (SA SHI* SU SE SO)
たちつてと  (TA CHI TSU TE TO)
なにぬねの (NA NI NU NE NO)
はひふへほ (HA** HI HU*** HE HO)
まみむめも  (MA MI MU ME MO)
や　ゆ　よ   (YA YU YO)
らりるれろ  (RA RI RU RE RO)
わ　　　　を (WA (W)O****)
ん             (N)

* This is sometimes romanized as "si", though "shi" is better for pronunciation purposes.
** This is also pronounced "wa" when used for grammatical reasons. For example, the sentence, わたしはねこです (I am a cat), the "ha" is pronounced "wa".
*** This is usually romanized as "fu", but they are interchangeable.
**** This is ONLY used for grammatical purposes. There are no words that use "(w)o". I will go into the uses for it later on.

Well, that's about it! I should have the videos up within the next few days, so look forward to it~

~Aggroe~

The (not so) Wonderful World of Drama CDs~!

Mina-san, konbanwa!
Good evening, everyone~
Today, I am going to talk about something that I didn't think I'd share on here, heh. I, normally, prefer games like Left 4 Dead, Fallout, .Hack, etc... But lately I've been doing a lot of PC gaming. Since my laptop can only handle so much, I've been playing a lot of interesting visual novels, some are mysteries, some horror, and some are even, yes I dare to say it, romantic! *gasp*
Yes, I am referring to Otome Games!
Haha, anyways, as it turns out I've also discovered Drama CDs! These are a GREAT way for me to practice my Japanese, since it's really hard to find people in this area who know Japanese and are willing to practice with me. I also decided that if I translate them myself, as many don't have English translations, I will accomplish 3 things:
1: My Japanese will get better! (Dakara, ima ore wa mada jyouzu janee)

 2: I won't end up with a splitting headache and have to translate it every single time I want to listen to one. Hey, I get bored from time to time! Plus, it's comforting hearing voices speaking Japanese, I think... I dunno why, though.




aaaaand...


3: All those lonely, bored, high school girls in America can enjoy them~!





There's one Otome game in particular that I've been enjoying. It's called "Starry*Sky" and there are four versions, one for each season! So far only ~in Spring~ has been translated into English, but if I can figure out how to make a patch for a game, I'll try getting a group together to translate the other three into English.

Basically, this game personifies the 12 star signs, each one is a handsome guy. There are three in each version. The Pisces is a major tsundere... urgh. He's kind of annoying~
They made an anime out of this too, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm gonna check it out when I get done with all my other anime, haha.
If I were to rate it...
Story: 3/5 stars, it was good but could be better.
Characters: 4/5 stars, I feel that they really did a good job projecting the signs as characters.
Art: 6/5 stars, the artwork made this game worth playing! I just want to look at these pictures all the time!
Voice acting: 4.5/5 stars, it was pretty damn good.
~~~

Anyways, back onto topic, there are different drama CDs for this game. Remember how I talked about the Yandere drama CDs? These are similar, except the relationship is MUCH MUCH healthier~
In any case, the drama CDs for this game fall into two categories: Seiza Kareshi (Constellation Boyfriend) and Seiza Danna (Constellation Husband). Pretty obvious, yeah? Well, I'm translating the Seiza Kareshi series right now, as I have WAAAAAY too much time on my hands! I'm starting with Pisces, simply because his pronounciation is fairly easy for me to understand, although Cancer's is more easily understood...
I've only done Track 1 so far, the intro, but I'm posting it here!
.....
Urgh, I'll just copy+paste the text below, that will be easiest.
If you want a link to buy the CD, it's Vol. 3, then here it is! The link goes to Amazon, but if you search Seiza Kareshi Drama CD I bet you'll find it elsewhere in no time!
Also, I'm sure there are other places to get it. This /is/ the internet, after all. I encourage you to buy it, but I can't force you, haha~

Oh, also, I'm willing to collaberate with other Japanese speakers out there! My translation is definitely not 100% perfect, as my vocabulary in Japanese is low, plus I translated the whole thing by ear. I know a lot of Japanese, but mostly sentence structures, slang, verbs, and some words here and there. I'm bad with colloquialisms and such...Yeah, this is my first translation EVER! I'm pretty damn proud, even though it's not great... It took me FOUR HOURS and this is a THREE MINUTE TRACK!... Still, I'm proud~ *posting it at the VERY bottom*

...Well, that's enough of my incredibly, surprisingly girly, post...
I'll be posting a playthrough of Monster Girl Quest soon, hopefully tomorrow, so look forward to an amazingly perverted time~!

Please feel free to request translations~! I really enjoy translating stuff, and it helps me out too! I have a lot of free time on my hands, so feel free to ask!

~Aggroe~

Awesome Asian Styles!

Hello Everyone~
Since yesterday I talked about Cosplay today I will post Geeky Gone Girly~ This is less geeky and more just trendy. I'm gonna give you a few of my favorite Asian styles! Since me and Aggroe both like Asian things XD I mean who doesn't? So here are 7 Asian styles for each day of the week in order from my least favorite to favorite~

7. I'm a huge fan of Decora Kei! This one is completely INSANE! These girls seriously look lie My Little Ponies! They cover themselves with all kinds of pretty pastel colored necklaces, hair clips, bows, earrings, everything you can possibly think of! They are covered!

6. There is also Fairy Kei which is a lot like Decora only with less accessories. It's very pastel and pretty but toned down a lot. A lot of people say they are the same thing. I can see it too they look very similar.  Also while Decora is more rainbow and pastel colors, Fairy is more just pastel. Also Fairy girls normaly have very pastel colored hair as wall.

5. There's also Lolita which I love! It's basically big hair, big dresses, big jewelry, sparkly, pink, girly, gorgeous and very dressy! There are different types of Lolita too. Like Gothic Lolita or Victorian Lolita, I've even seen Steam punk Lolita mashups! It's very elegant looking and very cute!

4. The next style I adore is Ulzzang! It's pretty much the Japanese hipster! Big glasses, sweaters with shorts, baggy clothes. The eyes are also wide and long but not nearly as dark as Gyaru.  It's very chill and cozy looking and it's more on the adorable side.

3. Visual Kei is another favorite! It's like Japanese punk goth! Lots of black and darker colors with pops of neon! The makeup is usually very dark. The hair is spiky and very colorful! It's like if you took punk and goth and mixed it together with all the insane accessories and clothing that is visual kei! In my honest opinion this one looks hot on guys!

2. Gyaru comes in as one of my favorites because I love it when a girl can pull off both cute and sexy and that's just what Gyaru is! Girls tend to have the really big, fluffy, curly hair. It can look a little outrageous and I think that's awesome! Also really dark, really big eyes are a big part of this style! The fashion is pretty trendy looking!

1. My ultimate favorite style is school girl! Now I don't think this is an official Japanese style but damn do I love it! Cardigans, bow ties, blouses, plaid skirts, knee high socks! All of my favorite articles of clothing in one! The make up and hair is usually very basic and pretty.

So for this next week I'll do something super fun and to my best ability imitate these styles! I'll post all of the pictures up next week! So prepare for that! Which style is your favorite? Tell me in the comments or on our facebook page Here~

I hope you liked this Geeky Gone Girly even though it wasn't very geeky, but oh well! Enjoy~!

Anemone <3