The latest anime (2006) produced by the Ghibli Studio, directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro Miyazaki. As a HUGE fan of Ghibli’s, i.e. Hayao Miyazaki’s animation, I thought this was a must-watch. A little backgroud info on my addiction to Miyazaki’s stuff. I have been watching his animation since when I was little. To name a few, Laputa - Castle in the Sky/????????(1986), Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind/????????(1984), Totoro/???????(1988), Kiki’s Delivery Service/??????(1989), Porco Rosso/???,(1992), Spirited Away/????????(2001), Princess Mononoke/ ?????(1997), Howl’s Moving Castle/???????(2004). They were all great, but my love had mostly been devoted to Laputa and Nausicaa not just because of the awesome storyline/character designs, but the insanely beautiful sound track that were featured in these two animations. These music had really influenced me a lot and they are where a lot of my inspirations originated from.
Here is a brief synopsis from variety.com:

To tell the truth, I was like “what the…. what’s going on? I have no clue on ____ and ____. Why did ____ do ____? Okay I understand this but why he _____ ?”….etc. Yes the plot was pretty badly developed. Poor or…maybe zero character development. (I guess I shouldn’t have expected the same quality of sublimeness,creativity, beauty, cleverness, from the old Miyazaki’s former productions, from his son Goro. I’m pretty sure no one on earth would have been able to reproduce the same quality ever) But visually and musically, this film is certainly on par with the former Miyazaki films: stunning visuals, rich facial expressions, vibrant colors (town in sunset looks like a nicely framed painting) , and awesome soundtrack (I was a little disappointed when I got to know the the music wasn’t directed by Joe Hisaishi/???, who created probably the most beautiful animation musical pieces ever made for the previous Miyazaki animations.) I think they were using the same team of artists as the characters and colorings greatly resemble the other Miyazaki films…like you would be able to tell right away that it is from Miyazaki.
I’m pleased by the visual and soundtrack so even though the story isn’t all that great and I wouldn’t give it a thumbs up, it still deserves a 6 out of 10. It certainly fails miserably compared to Miyazaki’s former animations, but it is still an OK animation, with stunning visuals and great sounds. I watched it twice actually, and I had Chinese subtitles on when I watched it again and was able to have a little better understanding on some of the ideas in the story. By the way my favorite character in the movie was the dragon! Way too cool~

Argh! Had a great day today and then when I was going to goto bed I slid on the stairs and landed on my elbow real hard… Shock was tremendous since my whole bodyweight was at a point, so shock transferred to the back of head as well giving me a headache… I hate my slippers! So slippery… guess it’s my fault getting these cheapass slippers from Daiso (a Japanese dollar store) for $2/pair….lol. Now skin is all broken up… hopefully I won’t get an infection…

Went to Grouse again with Boom (Korean friend) for boarding. Probably going to be the last try this year within the Vancouver area, as I’ll be going for the final run at Whistler on April 12th Anyway Grouse was so awesome today. I left around 5:30pm and got there in just about 30 minutes. It’s probably the closest skiing resort from downtown. The weather was supposed to be kind of foggy/cloudy but when we got there all the fog somehow cleared up. Snow condition was really good, couple cm’s of “new snow” and it was all fluffy and soft awesome feel As it was so soft I wasn’t too worried about getting hurt so I went ahead to try out some crazy moves that I wasn’t dare to try out last time (it was so hard packed last time we got here ) Boom waxed my board for me and I could totally feel the difference. It’s somehow more easier to control. Not too slippery though even though I thought it would be. Overall just makes the board more maneuverable.

Since the sky was cleared up and it was still bright I was able to see really beautiful panoramic view of downtown Vancouver (was able to see Canada Place and Hyatt Hotel quite clearly), and all the beautiful snow covered trees on the other nearby mountains. Pretty breathtaking. Only bad thing about today was that it was a bit chilly, so we ended up leaving after maybe 6 runs or so. I didn’t really get tired at all, guess I’m improving? lol but I did have a really crazy fall which I landed flat on my chest It’s still hurting but nothing too serious.. Overall it was a very enjoyable night.

Hay fever is striking back this year….:( I thought I’d be fine this year since I was totally fine last week until today. Still remember I was having a nightmare this morning and as soon as I got up I was like “oh shit this is going to suck” as I sensed there’s something wrong going on inside my nose. Soon after getting up I started sneezing like crazy, like 6 times in a row. Took some “Aerius” allergy pills which I thought would work as it worked perfectly last year, but apparently it had 0 effect on me even after taking 2x the recommended dosage. For the rest of the day I felt really bad. Took a 2 hour nap during the afternoon thinking that it might make me feel better but turned out to be worse. Got serious headache and sick feelings getting up. This is really annoying!!! Can’t goto bed as nose feels itchy, can’t work because hard to concentrate, can’t even play video games as I keep on sneezing and running nose…it can’t get any worse… I have snowboarding plans tomorrow night hopefully I’ll get better after tonight… it’s killing me! Why me!!!!!!

Okay, Rachel just said to me that her friend might be selling a ticket to XJapan’s 2008 concert (this weekend)…….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I died after hearing it. Well it’s still 100% uncertain whether I’ll be able to get it or not, don’t have high hopes for it…more like a dream…… Anyway rather than thinking about it all day and do nothing, I decided to watch a couple XJapan music videos like Art of Life to alleviate my crave. I hope it turns out good… XJapan has always been my #1 favorite band, and it will forever be.

Also looks like XJapan has just released a new DVD “X RETURNS”! WTF? Okay upon closer look it’s a re-release of their 1993 live concert at the Tokyo Dome. But hey it’s XJapan, I WILL buy it!
Here’s the link to the site about the DVD.

Found this funny/cute sequencer called “Mario Paint” on youtube. Looks like a little piece of freeware (runs on OSX / Windows) that lets you create some simple tunes that use a couple different instruments. The instruments are represented by different cute looking icons.

Look at this Super Mario Brothers 3 theme~

And this Final Fantasy VI battle theme!