This was imported from my old
BlogDrive blog posts.
Well, here we go again… One long long long entry to make up for what I’ve lost through thesis and stuff.
Top 5 for the week:
1. Raison D’etre – by Nightmare
2. Burial Applicant – by the GazettE
3. White Prayer – by Alice Nine
4. Immortal Madness – by Moi dix Mois
5. Kakusei Heroism – by An Cafe
Note: Moi dix Mois really is a good companion on a rainy season along with the Kagen no Tsuki TV OST. It really works.
Note again: If anybody could give me an OST of the “1 Liter of Tears” TV series, I would really appreciate it.
Note yet again: Who has some JEALKB songs out there? Please…
Horoi~ degozaruna…
Most of my fave anime series are now starting to close.
As of now Lucky Star’s done, Claymore’s in 25/26 episodes, Darker than Black’s in 24/26, and Kaibustu Oujo’s in 24/26. And as usual, they’re all in avi/mkv format.
Sidenotes:
1. I wonder why the subbing group [a.f.k.] has slowed down on releases? I mean, their Lucky Star subs and avi quality’s the best overall. This sub group is currently in Lucky Star and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and they’re lagging behind [bure] and [Guerrand], who are speedsub groups.
Speedsub groups
Low quality vids, no cleaning, less subtitles, 90% translating accuracy, very fast releasers.
Sub groups
HQ vids, almost all parts subbed, cleaned vids, 98% translating accuracy, slow releasers.
But I think the things I mentioned above are partial in the cause’s true nature.
2. Noticeable in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is how some people prefer their names written. The Itoshiki family has their names written vertically. If you write Itoshiki Nozomu horizontally, it reads “Zetsubou” (accdg to the anime).
3. Fanservice is now a common practice in anime. Gone are the days of the demure people from the DragonBall Z and YuYu Hakusho era. Now panty-flashing, provocatively-smiling, open-to-viewers stripping-locker-areas are now commonplace. And not only the women, sometimes also the men in some animes too (especially those with the yaoi touch) strip as provocatively as the other gender, but let’s leave it to your imagination to imagine that.
4. I am currently watching:
Lucky Star (completed)
Kaibutsu Oujo
Claymore (completed)
Darker than Black
Umisho
Doujin Work
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Sky Girls
Zero no Tsukaima ~Futatsuki no Kishi~
Devil may Cry
Kaze no Stigma (completed)
School Days
Nagasarete Airantou
D-GrayMan
Genshiken OVAs
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
Yami to Boshi no Hon no Tabibito (completed)
Baccano!
Project ICE OVAs
Murder Princess OVAs (completed)
Princess Princess (watching for the 3rd time)
5. Most of the animes I have been watching coincidentally contains tsundere characters.
6. From the allusion (see Fruits Basket manga) that most girls take their faces from their fathers and the boys from their mothers, most male characters especially the bishonen characters almost looks like women. They’d look fantastic in drag. Try Yamato Nadeshico’s Yukinojo.
7. I got a thesis-related idea from Lucky Star. Cool!
8. Also, after some research on Wikipedia, most romance-themed anime nowadays stem from … eroge. That’s right – EROGE -> EROtikku GEemu (Erotic games). I never played eroge before, but if I get an itch probably I’ll give it a try and just cover one of my eyes when ero scenes come, to cut my sin to half *joke*. Well, sample proofs are School Days and Shuffle. Also, surmising that most RPGs like eroge has very good romance plots, most producers now just chop the XXX off the storylines and create an anime. Cool.
9. See this rate:
ANIME TITLES I BOUGHT, ACQUIRED & DLed (in years)
2004 – 26 (almost all in VCD format, 3 in DVD)
2005 – 55
2006 – 88
2007 – 79 (and still counting)
Near-exponential growth. If my parents knew I’m hiding a cabinetful of anime DVDs and paraphernalia, they’d freak out. I mean, I spend more on anime than J-Pop albums and singles (I only have less than 25 of them). The number of VCDs and DVDs I have can make my mom’s movie DVD collection look like as small as an E-Aji chip. I probably spend as much as the average otaku on a shopping spree in Comiket.
10. Most successful animes almost always release character CDs. And sadly, only a few of these are quite ear-goodies. It’s just probably for market, not music. Ouch.
11. Kinda funny how Japanese words end up in slang. For example, in Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, if you take Itoshiki Rin’s name and write it horizontally as opposed to traditional vertical reading manner, the name reads “zetsurin”.
Of course, “zetsurin” is “unparalled” or “peerless”, but strangely it is also a slang for “horny”. Hahahahahaha….!!!
12. Devil may Cry’s got a lot of eye candy (as to what Gail-neechan said) and is one of its prime assets as a marketable anime, but the lack of a storyline, or the lack of a graspable concept really kinda gives it a 1.5 deduction in points in a 1-10 point basis.
13. Most anime uses the so-called “helping-hand” concept they use with most Japanese artists. I mean, Gundam SEED did to TM Revolution the same thing Pulp Fiction did to John Travolta. Death Note made Nightmare a more prominent name in J-rock. XXXHOLiC helped BUCK-TICK gain momentum in re-establishing itself in 2004 or so. I’VE artists (like KOTOKO and MELL) made killings out of most romance-themed animes so far. D-GrayMan helped abingdon boys school rise to the Oricon Charts. Like so.
14. Japan’s still a big anime factory. Not to mention music singles deluges and games depot. The three things Japan is known for besides sushi and sake.
It seems now Comic Odyssey, Comic Alley & Comic Quest is now feeling the “bite”.
National Bookstore and Powerbooks now are garnering a huge following in the manga section due to its very low pricing. Manga volumes there range from 395 to 455 pesos ($9-$10). On a 3-Day sale at SM it could get as low as 310 pesos (roughly $7.50). Wow.
I have already bought 12 (believe it – 12) mangas from May 2007 to September 2007. Average of 2 per month. At this rate I could build a library at my cabinet.
Try 10 * 400 and add it to 2 * 310. You know, SM usually has 3-day sales so I buy my manga now where a 3-day sale happens, and that means 20% discounts, and manga comes cheap. Total: 4000 + 620 = 4620, for 12 books it’s considerably cheap.
If we bought all that at the 3 big C-assholes, 12 * 600 = 7200, which is very very shitty pricing to say the least.
Know that Comic Odyssey, Comic Alley & Comic Quest sells mangas at 600+ pesos apiece ($16 or so), which is quite costly.
So now the traditional manga sellers are getting forced. Heck, the only “buyable” things from there are anime merchandise and NewType.
I myself have raised this question at some of my friends at comic conventions.
And now the manga buyers are nearing to asking Comic Odyssey, Comic Alley & Comic Quest the question of the masses…
… Lower manga pricing. Deal or no deal?
I’d like to go to Japan someday. For work of course. Almost all companies there accept entry-level programmers, and they have a huge demand for computer-related jobs, so I’m open to the idea of flying to the Land of the Rising Yen.
I just hope I don’t land on an eroge company.
So work? Somebody again asked me my top 5 job targets once I graduate. So here.
1. Programmer (of course)
2. Teacher / Professor
3. Systems Analyst
4. Game Developer
5. Entrepreneur
It would really suck if I don’t get in any of those. Really.
Huh. Deliverables still sucks. Professors are so stringy and bitchy when it comes to requirements. They want this, they want that, they change at the last minute, they ditch classes for lousy reasons, huh.
College red tape is going to kill its inhabitants. Seriously. Like a report that would take 10 pages due to required double-spaced sentences, incredulous formats, stupendous requirements.
Professors should first realize their students DO NOT have bottomless wallets. Do professors know that some of their requirements use money? I think most professors do not, or do not care to trouble themselves over poor penniless students scrimping just for allowance and tuition fees. There had been numerous students who had to break their piggy banks or drain their wallets or go over their card limits due to professors issuing very costly projects, paperworks or trivial assignments. And those assignments mostly have a direct affect on grades, and I have seen one too many number of students cry because they have no more money for deliverable requirements and resort to pride-crushing ways such as begging and commuting by walking just to pass. I once felt this way too, and I had to scrimp and ask classmates for spare change and credits to cover some amount just to print 30 pages for a report.
Xerox machine operators also make a killing out of students rushing to xerox something some professors labeled as “compulsory”. Well, sounds really bad but it’s reality.
Some professors also had the gall to make some minor books “compulsory to buy”.
I had already voiced this over the suggestion boxes, but after 5 entry slips I filled out, nobody gives a damn. I think the suggestion box reader is a faculty communism believer. And I’m in 4th year, so I’ll be just another voice blown away by the winds.
I think UST should deduct money this way on the professors’ paychecks. I actually dreamt this up one night, so here.
Professor’s Pay Per Semester = Check Amount – [ X*(number of students he/she handles with same subject & specs) ]
[ X*(number of students he/she handles with same subject & specs) ] = average student money loss on professors every semester on xerox, printed requirements, deliverables, absenteeism and such. This “X” amount stems from (the number of projects that would require money as its gasoline) divided by (1 minus the probability of a student passing the project) times (the rate of absenteeism by professor, if absences due to lousy reasons).
Reiterate:
X pesos = [ A / ( 1-B ) ] * ( 1+C )
Legend:
A = (the average number of projects given by professor that would require money as its gasoline)
B = (the percentage probability of a student producing the project, converted to decimal form), or…
B = ( (D / A) + 1 ) * 0.5
C = (the rate of absenteeism by professor, if absences due to lousy reasons)
D = (the number of produced projects by the student)
Note A would not include Thesis. Thesis is an exception due to all students, whether they have money or not, have to submit this.
Some students can afford like a 100 pesos project easily while some may take a couple of days to muster the same amount. Say we have a student. For example, (avrg 8 deliverables by 1 professor in a semester) divided by (1-50% = 0.5 -> student passing the deliverable or not) is 16 pesos lost for the student. This varies from student to student. Some students can pass 90% of the time but some can pass 40% of the time. Imagine 8 divided by 0.1 if the student is really rich. And if the professor absents himself for a lousy reason such as alarm clock failure or traffic, well, sucks for him.
This amount may effectively discourage professors from skipping classes and issuing costly assignments. If one professor earns Php 44,000 a semester (estimated), and he/she handles 7 classes of 45 students each, and say X = 25, let’s see… 44,000 – (45*7*25) = 36,125. Worse than tax, yes?
If UST garners this amount and uses it to maintain the college buildings like repainting, cleaning, refurbishing, varnishing, vandalism removal, and others, UST would put Ateneo and LaSalle buildings to shame (don’t bother with UP-Diliman – it’s a lost cause to compare UST to such unkempt buildings at UP-Diliman, UST wins hands-down in cleanliness).
Or if those damned professors whine like Australian dingoes, UST should rather then make anything deliverable by students that would involve any substantial amount of money, may it be assignments or seatworks or homeworks, be made non-compulsory or optional and would have no adverse bearing on a student’s grade. Say if a professor wants a 10-page report, it would just amount to +10 or so on the grade. Not passing the reports will not affect students’ grades.
But until then, most professors would still view students as walking piggybanks with bottomless pockets and would still dole out costly assignments, projects and deliverables. And students will still break thousands of piggybanks and drain their wallets bare and sell it and unwillingly withdraw at the nearest ATM.




Leave a comment