kakijun

http://wikisend.com/download/937130/きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ - ぱみゅぱみゅレボリューション (2012) [256].zip

The best track is お休み

Mirai Nikki episode 3 subs are out if you haven't noticed! We put a lot of work into making them perfect (well, really nice) this week, so enjoy!

In other news, I just</j> found out I was accepted to study abroad at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea! I know, Korean, the one language I have no experience in. At least Mandarin I would have a fighting chance. More on that later :D

Mirai Nikki episode 2 subs are up on D-Addicts. I liked this weeks episode. I think the translation went pretty well this week, despite being so busy. aikaraueu sent me a really great timed file of the Japanese subs, which made the translation only take a few hours. Hopefully that's how next weeks episode goes too :)

My exams went pretty well (I think). I'm out of school for the summer, but starting a new job monday. Hopefully everything works out with that...

I decided to subtitle Mirai Nikki. It's been a while since I've watched Jdramas, but I've been studying Japanese this whole time...Except for a brief stint with Chinese, but we won't go into that now. I'd like to think that the quality of my translations has improved some.

The nice thing about subbing with 2 extra years of Japanese experience is that what once would have taken 12 hours now takes 3. :)

I need a subtitle editor for Mac as I no longer have a Windows computer (<3 Aegusub)
Let me know if you know of a good one (頼む！)

I was actually going to sub KagiHeya, but it looks like that's already being taken care of. Not to mention Mirai Nikki is much shorter and easier to translate.

Check out my twitter for updates: https://twitter.com/#!/Kakijun

Found this video on Youtube. It's きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅPONPONPON sung by a guy named KanzentaiCell (完全体セル).

What a voice...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXCHM3tnEYM&feature=related

Last month I watched Boys over Flowers (Korean) for the first time. It caught my eye when I realized that the main actress, Goo Hye Sun, was going to be starring in the new Taiwanese adaption of Absolute Boyfriend. "But she doesn't speak Chinese, does she?" I thought, but waited patiently for the first episode to air.


What are you actually saying?

It looks like they just dubbed her lines.

...Why?

I picked these out of Final Fantasy XIII-2:

戯れる    「たわむれる」  To mess with/to be playful
最適　　「さいてき」       Best / optimal / most suitable
名残　　「なごり」          Remains / Traces / Vestiges
快適　　「かいてき」       Pleasant / Comfortable
追加　　「ついか」          Addition
遺跡　　「いせき」          Historic Ruins / Ruins / Vestiges
出土　　「でゅつど」       Archeological Excavation
未知　　「みち」              Not Yet Known
直ちに　「ただちに」      At Once / Immediately
妨害　　「ぼうがい」      Obstruction / Disturbance / Jamming / Interference
視察　　「しさつ」          Inspection
封鎖　　「ふうさ」          Blockade
迷宮　　「めいきゅう」  Maze / Labyrinth
落盤　　「らくばん」      Cave-in

In December 2009 I imported Final Fantasy XIII before it came out in the USA. I could just barely handle the level of Japanese, but I managed with a great deal of determination. 2 years later I imported Final Fantasy XIII-2. Japanese is no longer a problem, which just leaves me to enjoy the game. I've played through the first 3-5 hours of the game and these are my first impressions (I'll try to keep this spoiler-free. Remember, I'm not far in the game myself.):



I was worried this would be another Final Fantasy X-2 (fanservice!) but despite the image above, my fears appear to be mislead. The game is much darker. It is set three years after the events of Final Fantasy XIII. The happy ending of the first game never happened. The main character Lightening has disappeared and is believed to be dead.

There is an amazing opening sequence reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, but I won't spoil it for you. The game is told from Sera's Serah's point of view. Remember she wasn't even a playable character in Final Fantasy XIII? She lives in New Bodhum, a small settlement in Pulse, not far from Cocoon. Her and Snow never got married and he is gone. Something seems wrong with the world and Serah doesn't believe Lightning is dead. When a boy appears out of nowhere claiming he can lead her to Lightning, she chooses to follow him.

Non-Linearity
This game had a very short development time compared to XIII. XIII-2 feels like an apology from the developers about XIII. The game is not as linear. You have free control of where you want to explore, but at this point I suspect you have to go to the correct places to progress the story.

Side-Quests
From what I played there are also some side quests, although of the three that I did, two were fetch-the-item quests and the other I had to find and kill a specific monster (a Cie'th aka シ骸 aka Shi-gai).

Pokemon
Keep in mind that I'm not far into the game yet, but it appears that you can tame monsters and have them fight with you. They have their own Crystarium (who thought of that name?) screen and you use items to level them up. The one I have now is Cait Sith (written ケット・シー)!

Mog
Mog the Moogle is one of the main characters, and I believe transforms into Serah's weapon.

Random Battles
Or semi-random to be exact. Monsters will randomly appear in front of you and you have the choice to either attack them and enter into a battle, or flee and try to make it far enough away before you run out of time. If you strike them you get a preemptive strike. If they strike you it's a normal battle. If you don't make it away in time I believe it is a surprise attack.

Soundtrack
The music is really good so far. It's not too far off from XIII. A lot of the songs have subtle lyrics in the background. One of them had a hilariously bad English rap, but the music made up for it. I wonder how much of it they'll change? Most of the tracks have English lyrics even though the singer was obviously Japanese. I really liked the theme for New Bodhum. It reminded me of the theme for Besaid Island in Final Fantasy X. Also when you're attacked it changes to the "aggressive" mix, which is excellent.


New Bodhum Theme

New Bodhum (Aggressive Mix) (Listen for at least 45 seconds!)

There's a lot of other things to talk about. Time traveling, Chocolina, the freaky Chocobo-shop lady. Multiple responses in dialog conversations. Let me know if you have any questions!

I have two Chinese roommates, Wu and Tan, collectively the WuTan Clan. They're both grad students who've been living in America for about 1 month.

Last night I came into the kitchen to find Tan making frozen waffles--for the first time apparently. I'm not really sure if he knew what waffles were. For one, it was night time. OK, weird, I thought but maybe he just wanted a snack. But he was cooking them in the oven! He opened the oven and used a pair of wooden chopsticks to pull them into his bowl.

Yes, his bowl.

"You know you're supposed to eat those with a plate right?" I asked.
"What?"
"Yeah, and you put syrup on those."
"S...Syrup...?" He clearly had no idea what I was talking about. I went into the pantry and showed him a bottle of Aunt Jemima's Original. "Here." I said and handed it to him. He hesitantly opened the top and dribbled a little bit onto the top waffle.
"Dear lord," I said and dragged a plate from the cabinet. I transferred the waffles and poured a generous amount of syrup. "Do you have a fork?"
"I can just use chopsticks." He mimicked picking up an entire waffle and putting it in his mouth.
"Don't be silly." I opened the cabinet and gave him one of my forks. "Here. Think of this as a valuable cultural lesson."

A few minutes later I was walking by Wu's room and I spotted them examining the plate, discussing the strange phenomenon of waffles.
"You know how to eat them, right?" I asked Tan. He speared an entire waffle on the end of the fork and put the end in his mouth. "Give me that." I said and took the fork, showing him how to cut a square out of one of the waffles. "Whoa!" they exclaimed when I picked up a neat little piece.

The next day Tan brought home a box of frozen pancakes and a bottle of Aunt Jemima's Original.

Needless to say I posted it on the fridge for everyone to see