Come on 2017, bring whatever you got

It has reached that time of year again - the end of it. Is 2016 finally coming to an end? It's almost a bit hard to believe. I honestly can't believe tomorrow is January 1, and yet, I'm also super excited and eager for 2017 to come. Before I'm going to let that happen though, it's time for my usual year-end review post!

Arashi - Are You Happy [review]

It's that time of year again! The leaves are changing, the weather is getting cold, and what is this? A new Arashi album being released? Unfortunately I am not in Japan anymore to bask in the amazingness that is this album (and if I was, I would've picked up this album instantly). But, thanks to the internet, I've still got a copy of the songs and now it's time to give my review. And if you haven't noticed... for once I'm not starting off sounding like a total downer!

Arashi - Don't You Get It PV + Making

I don't think I can say enough about Don't You Get It. As a song it's not the best thing in the world - I like it, but it's no Fukkatsu Love or Ai no Collection, but it's pretty good. No - for Don't You Get It, it's not the song that is the part I love - it's everything that has come with the song. The performance, the PV, the making - all of these things that Arashi appear in are the reason I fell in love with Arashi. All these things are exactly what I feel Arashi is.

Concert Reports: Japonism dome + arena

Hi,

For the people who have come to my blog but don't know my tumblr... I actually went to Arashi's Japonism concert last year in November, and earlier this year in July and I wrote reports for both occasions. Again, you may have seen these on tumblr already, but cross-referencing them here anyway.

Feel free to check out the reports. The reason I'm posting them now? Because... I forgot to do it earlier. Also, the Japonism DVD came out and I'm still debating if I should "review" it considering I've already reviewed the concert in my report. Well, I guess if you see a "Japonism DVD review"  you'll know my answer to that question. Anyway, enough rambling.

Japonism @ Nagoya - 2015.11.07

Part 1 - Part 2

Japonism in Arena @ Shizuoka - 2016.07.24 (Noon showing)

Full Report

Enjoy :)

My Dark Souls playthrough

Dark Souls is an interesting game, as I'm sure anyone who has played any of the Souls games (or Bloodborne) already know, but this is my first time playing.

Usually I don't blog about games to note my progress - mostly because it's not necessary. Most RPGs are fairly linear and even if they do provide some amount of choice (such as Mass Effect) there aren't a lot of room for actual mistakes and failures and huge fuck ups. Dark Souls does have room for all this stuff though, and somehow this makes all the achievements I do get that much more awesome.

Dark Souls is the only game where every boss battle I go in to, I get a huge adrenaline rush and I realize after I win (or die) that my heart rate is usually through the roof. It's the only game where I would rather slowly sneak my way through an area holding my shield up in fear than just blindly run through and hack and slash my way through crap. Hell. It's the only game where I've even thought about using a shield to parry and have actually had to time my dodge rolls to a precise second. Seriously. This game was a huge learning curve for me, but I am learning.

And to track all the learning I've done - this is where this post comes in to play!

Currently: GAME COMPLETED WHAAAAAT

Arashi - I seek / Daylight [review]

Here we are, Arashi's 49th single and their first double A-side in 4 years? 5 years? I don't remember, but it's been a while. Not surprising to anyone, these two songs are the themes to two Arashi dramas, Sekai Ichi Muzukashii Koi and 99.9. I am watching both so I've heard both songs.

Truthfully, I didn't really have an opinion of either song before the singles came out. From what I could from the dramas, I liked I Seek a lot more than Daylight... but now that the single has come out? I am really confused with how I feel about it.

You can read my review and see what I mean when I say, I am seriously confused at how I feel about this single:

My thoughts on subbing 99.9

...I am never subbing a drama again.

Thank you - seriously - thank you to everyone who commented on my subs, who downloaded them, who has used them and kept up with me the whole ten episodes. I loved the drama, every inch of it. 99.9 is my most favourite Jun drama ever besides Hana Yori Dango. But the only reason I manage to create subtitles for all ten episodes was because of you guys in the comments.

I'll put it bluntly - I don't think I did a good job in translating the drama, nor did I do a good job in making the subtitles. I really, really, encourage those who have access to the other subs to check them out.

Translating a drama is very different from translating a variety show, or translating a magazine article, a novel, an essay etc. All of these things I have experience in -- dramas? Nothing. You might be wondering what makes a drama so different than a variety show--it's still TV, and that's because in a way, a drama is halfway in between a variety show and a novel. I'm translating a script, and the language required for script writing, is very different than the language required in something as casual as a game show, or as literary as a full blown Japanese novel. I couldn't be too casual, but I also couldn't be too formal with my language. The middle ground? I still haven't found it.

It didn't help that this drama was about lawyers, which meant a ton of specialized vocabulary and phrases that I had to look up and research, on top of all the god damned puns (which I loved hearing, did not love translating).

But... all of these reasons was actually why I decided to sub the drama. Because, I never would have known this if I hadn't tried.

Also, I got to learn a bit more about how subs are made. Usually I just send my translations in to whatever sub group I'm helping out and I've never bothered to watch the finished product. So after I translate, I literally have no idea what happens to my translations, but now I kind of do? And let me tell you... wow. I do not like making subtitles. At all. Timing is so boring and I'm not good at remembering the codes and stuff for typesetting. Also, figuring out what to do when lines overlap? Yeah--if you haven't noticed, I still haven't really figured out how to deal with that and I'm sorry. I looked through all the anime I have subbed, dramas, and... I just couldn't figure out how to do it nicely.

Also, not having someone to check over my translation was terrible. You guys actually have no idea how many times I've updated the subtitles because I've found so many typos. I've found small errors. I've changed up lines for sounding awkward. I try so hard every week to go over my translation with a fine comb -- as if I was proofreading a final essay for one of my university courses and I still miss typos. I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

All in all though. I just want to say thank you, again. Thank you. I can't say that enough.

This project was a huge learning experience for me and... well, I didn't have a ton of fun doing it, but I'm glad I did it and I'm super happy I was able to finish it.

Again, are these subtitles top quality? No. No, they really aren't, and I'll probably keep going back to them and fixing them for the better part of the summer (even though no one will care by then), but I tried. :D

...and I will end by saying that if they do release an SP episode later in the year...... I'll think about whether I'll release subtitles for it. For now, most of me is saying "no", but I'm a completionist at heart, and I'd feel bad subbing the drama and leaving the SP out. So. When (because I firmly believe it's a when) the time comes, we'll see.

99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi [ENG soft subs]

Hello,

I know there are twofour other people on LJ who are subbing 99.9 (menimienaimono, eien_no_aidoru, amnoxjun, and kotomichi) and offering softsubs, but I needed a self-project to work on and decided making my own subs for 99.9 would be it!

I haven't had to time subs in a good 5 years and I've never done type-setting before so bare with me. The first couple episodes might be a bit shabby in terms of timing and styling, but hopefully I'll have improved significantly by the end.

I am timing these subs based off of the [848x478] raws provided by jdramacity. I will be releasing the subs every Saturday (JST between 12am-6pm). Occasionally, if you're lucky I might release them earlier, but I will never be later than Saturday at 6pm, so feel free to check back every Saturday so you can prepare yourself for the new episode on Sunday! :D

UPDATE(02/18/2018): All subtitles have been re-uploaded with typesetting to match season 2.

RULES: ...None. My name doesn't even appear on the subs. If you are going to re-translate or hardsub though, just give me a heads up ^_^.

Links:
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #1
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #2
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #3
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #4
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #5
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #6
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #7
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #8
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #9
99.9~Keijisenmon Bengoshi - Request #10

Link to entire folder: episodes 1 - 10

Feedback on anything (timing is off, translation sounds weird or is just flat out wrong, courtroom language is inappropriate etc.) are all appreciated. That's actually why I'm putting these up for people.

I hope you enjoy the drama!

Past Updates
04/23 - Episode 1 released
04/30 - Episode 2 released
05/07 - Episode 3 released
05/14 - Re-uploaded edited subs of ep1-3 (major changes noted below)
05/15 - Episode 4 released
05/22 - Episode 5 released
05/28 - Episode 6 released
06/06 - Episode 7 released
06/15 - Re-uploaded all subs to fix a few small errors (I kept writing 0.01% instead of 0.1% -_-;;)
06/18 - Episode 8 and 9 released

(Major) Subtitle Changes

Episode 1 - Added fancy typsetting and tweaked a few lines. Changed the "telephone pun" to make an actual English pun and not just a direct translation of the Japanese.

Episode 2 - Fixed up the translation for the money pun. My "pun" is a reference on monopoly. This pun is re-used again in episode 4, which is why I felt the need to update it.

Episode 3 - Changed the name of the racehorse Sada-sensei keeps talking about from "Sadanouin" to "Sada-no-Win"

Episode 7 - Changed the note for "Shuhan Juttai" - I totally forgot it was also a drama that was airing on TV -_-;;

Episode 9 - A ridiculous amount of typos and errors, I am so sorry. I have no idea how I missed so many of them when I was checking the file. I wonder if I just forgot to save it when I uploaded it...

SekaMuzu episode 6 [Spoilers?]

I haven't been the biggest fan of Ohno's drama, Sekai Ichi Muzukashi Koi. I enjoyed the first episode a lot and thought the drama had a lot of potential, but the following episodes... really made me realize that romance dramas are not my thing at all. But I stuck with the drama because I have a TV and it's not that hard to turn it on and do something else to support the Arashi members, so that's what I did.

Then episode 6 aired, and well... I think I'm finally on board the ReijixMisaki train. Kind of. With a lot of hesitations, but I do think they are super cute together right now.

Let me backtrack a bit first though.

Fire Emblem: If / Mass Effect / Journey

Video game post dump! As per the usual - me just rambling about my thoughts on the games. I've played more games than these throughout the year, but these were the big ones that left an impression on me. (Also the ones I actually finished ^^;;)

Fire Emblem: If (Hoshino)

I really, really, like Awakening. In fact, I need to replay it some day, but when Fire Embem: Fates was announced back in North America I was super stoked. And then I moved to Japan and Fates was already out and me, being me, picked up a New 3DS (used) and a copy of Fire Emblem as soon as I got my first pay check.

...I don't necessarily think the game lived up. This might sound weird, but I felt like this game just had too much. Part of it is due to the fact that it's actually three games so there are a lot of characters you need to keep track of. I've only played the Hoshino path, but you still learn the whole cast of Conquest and just... yeah. Keeping track of everyone is hard. I haven't done the research but I feel like Awakening's cast wasn't even half as vast? Not only this, but in general the game just had a lot of stuff in it. The village, your house, that weird... massage... game... thing... (let's just forget about that, I honestly did not get the point. Why).

Seriously though. The village. I collected food, upgraded stuff, got gems and what not, but I never really did much otherwise. Maybe it plays more if you do spotpassing and online battles? But if not, it's a pretty big waste.

Story wise... it was alright. Due to the cast I found it really hard to get into the characters and the story--and I really wasn't feeling the family turmoil at all. Maybe I should've started with Conquest, because I feel like that would've been more interesting? Destroying things from inside? Hoshino was just kind of like... eh... all though Ryoma is a bad-ass. Seriously. And I liked Takumi for the most part. But your step-siblings suck, except for the sister. But we all know what happens to her -_-;;. Your brother Marcus though is a grade-A jerk Yeah, you can tell I really could not get into the story. At some point I actually found it pretty tedious.

I found the new jobs kind of interesting though. Didn't... understand them, but interesting. Would've liked dragons and magic user, although the ninja class was pretty handy if you levelled the properly. For Hoshino the levels were pretty standard, I really only got stuck at the end (the two stage boss battle which oh my god did I get stuck. I got REALLY stuck). But beyond that... I never found any thing in the main game was too difficult. BUT I wasn't a tank like in Awakening either. Although, I also played hard. I remember switching to Regular just to see the ending after dying for the Nth time and was so surprised at how much easier it was. I'm glad I started with Hard right off the bat.

All I can say though, was that when I finished the game, I was glad to put it down. Yeah.

I think part of my lack of enjoyment may have been due to how text heavy Fire Emblem is as a game, and my Japanese is... good. Like, I understood most things and the story and everything, but actually taking the time to read through all the character conversations and side convos and pairing convos got really tedious after a while and took a lot of work and brain power.

Overall though, I think I might just stick with Awakening. I liked Chrom and the kids made more sense in that game (the kids didn't make sense in this one... why do people have grown up kids? What the fuck)? Anyway.

Mass Effect Trilogy

Okay. Okay. I know, you're probably like wait--you just started Mass Effect? And in my defence, I don't like shooting games and I always remembered this as being an Xbox game, which was a double "no" for me. I really should just make an entirely separate Mas Effect post, but laziness means I won't. So. Things to talk about for this game.

Mass Effect 1:
A lot of people shit on Mass Effect 1 for clunky and crappy gameplay, but I actually liked it? Yeah, it was kind of slow, but it worked considering I can't play shooters at all and am not used to playing shooters. Also the best thing about ME1 gameplay was that you had a separate crouch button and you didn't just randomly stick to things because the X button was your only button for doing anything. God the amount of times I died in 2/3 because I was trying to roll or run away and then accidentally stuck to a fucking wall. Or even worse, I'm trying to stick to something and then LEAP OVER IT AND DIE.

So in terms of button layout Mass Effect 1 hit it on the spot SO well. The menus were god awful. Ugh. The menus.

Also, story wise, Mass Effect 1 has the best story. It was exciting, yeah you only went to three worlds but I felt all the missions for the worlds were engaging and interesting. It wasn't just shoot up some people here and shoot up people there. The cast was engaging and fun. Also, Illos was beautiful. And that whole conversation you have with Sovereign was like... what the fuck?! I remember my jaw just dropping and being like "holy shit what did I get into". The reapers were scary and how was I supposed to beat this? HOW WAS I GOING TO BEAT THIS GUYS? Which of course, leads into...

Mass Effect 2
Which, contrary to popular opinion, is actually my least favourite game? The thing is, I love the cast of Mass Effect and the characters definitely make a lot of the game for me. I love the interactions, the friendships, which is why I loved Mass Effect 3 and all the little details they added with crew member interaction. The problem though, is that I also need a story. And yes--Mass Effect is a trilogy with an overarching story, I know that. Defeat the reapers. But within a single contained game, I also need a story and Mass Effect 2 had no story.

What was all the crap with the collectors? Where were the reapers? The opening was so promising, when my ship got blown up and Shepherd DIED and I was like "WHAT THE FUCK" and then it kind of just... stalled. I went and collected my crew, and did all their loyalty missions and it was at stage two that I realized.. wait... there is no fucking story. All I'm doing is building a team to invade the reaper base? THAT IS ALL I AM DOING?! Screw you TIM. Screw. You.

The suicide mission was cool though. I'll give you that. It wasn't too hard to figure out who went were and get everyone to survive, but it fun and actually made me feel like all my efforts paid out in the end (unlike ME3...). Also, I love, love, Illium. The Asari are just... such an interesting species, and no, not because they're hot or sexy. It's because they're so damn catty and fickle. Hearing all the conversations that occurred at Illium was hilarious. Favourite race besides the Salarians--and that's mostly because of Mordin. Whereas for the Asari, I just like the as a whole because... yeah. So bitchy. My god.

Mass Effect 3
This game was so great until about the time Kai Leng showed up. I loved, loved, loved, how you got to visit all the home worlds and see what they were like. I thought it was so cool. I loved the world in Mass Effect 1 too, and... I don't remember any of the worlds in Mass Effect 2 except for Omega and Illium (and the collector ship of course), but Mass Effect 3 I remember everywhere. Tuchunka was amazing--that entire sequence, even just going through the ruins.

Mordin =(. Mordin was one of the most memorable, amazing characters out there. I was so distraught when he died, I really did tear up. But damn, Tuchunka was hands down the best part of the game. Then... yeah, things just went oddly downhill from there.

Thessia and beyond was when it really hit rock bottom actually. I was so stoked for Thessia. The great Asari homeworld! We hit the ruins, find out there is a fricken PROTHEAN BEACON THERE... and then some Ninja shows up and just jacks the data and leaves. What the hell? Like. What was Kai Leng? WHAT WAS THAT? Then there was Priority: Earth, which in of itself I didn't mind. Yay, we finally get to go to earth and figure out what the fuck is up and destroy a lot of people a long the way. Cool. Fun.

...and then it just end?  You sprint, go up to the light, have that annoying ass slow-mo moment and then boom. Star child and pick your path. What. The. Fuck. I didn't spend all this time saving the Geth/Quarians, recruiting the Rachni and uniting the entire fucking galaxy so I could pick a path. Also, I had no problem picking Destroy, just FYI. Why? Because I figured we could just make the Geth again. Why not - it's not like people lost their brains and all their data. It just made these things unfunctional for now. Why can't we just remake them?

And for people saying I'm missing the point and EDI and Legion became actual people due to their experience and bonds. Okay--sure, I buy that. But at the end of the day... wasn't the idea just to get AIs and Organics to get along? And we achieved that (presumably). Look, I get it, you formed personal bonds with Legion and EDI, and they won't come back, but the option is total annihilation, or annihilation something that came return. I pick the latter. I couldn't bring Ashley back, or Mordin, or Thane, but I sure as hell can remake the Geth.

So. Plus points for ME3 was overall the gameplay--as in how the game was structured, was amazing. But plotwise it failed bad. Also the menus. What the hell happened to the quest menu and why did they have to fuck it up like that? WHY? Ugh. The menus in ME2 were amazing and then they had to take a crap all over them. *sigh*.

Romances
I went Liara / Garrus / Garrus (although I kind of strung Liara along for a bit because I had trouble deciding). In the end though, the deal breakers was that I realized I was only hanging onto Liara because she was the person I picked in ME1 and I felt bad breaking up with her, because I really liked Liara from ME1. I thought she was very sweet and likeable, and then she gained some well-needed spunk in ME2 (Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC was so great). In ME3 though... a lot of things just felt really forced with her and I felt like all the conversations and interactions actually ended up feeling really awkward.

Part of it was the voice acting. I don't know who did her voice acting, but it sounded like Liara had lost all form of emotion. She couldn't even sound properly indignant when talking with Aethyta. Seriously. What happened? It was like the life got sucked out of her. Ugh. So in the end it was Garrus. Garrus was my bro.

If I were to play the game again though, I think I'd remain relationship less. Although I hate the fact that it's so easy to slip into a romance--especially if you are like me and try to talk to everyone. Also, man, some of the girls just throw themselves at Shepherd. Like. What. Why is everyone so thirsty in this game? I just don't get it. Liara in game 1 included.

Choices:
Saved Rachni Queen. Saved Wrex. Killed Ashley. Romanced Liara. Everyone survived the survival mission. Destroyed Collector Base. Romanced Garrus. Cure ghenophage, Mordin died. Saved and recruited Rachni. Brokered peace between Quarian/Geth. Romanced Garrus. Destroy Ending.

Also, no I did not have Javik or the Citadel DLC. I saw all the videos on Youtube though.

Also, also. This is really random and out of all the ships I could become obsessed with in this game, I got really attached to Benezia/Aethya. They're like... two pretty minor side-characters, but I just find that whole angle really fascinating. WHAT HAPPENED? WHY DID THEY SPLIT? It helps that they're so black and white and then you have Liara thrown in.

Also it helps that the first Mass Effect fic I read was Saving Nezzy and... man is it amazing.

So yeah. Mass Effect. What a ride. I would love to replay it again. :)

Journey
Final game I will talk about is Journey. My friend made me play it in like.. 3 hours and what I can say? It's cute, it's beautiful, and I really need to thank the dude online who helped me throughout the whole game. And it was just one guy. I'm sorry, you probably thought I was a total dumbass who had no idea how to follow you around. I'm sorry I got lost at the very last part when we had to go up the mountain. I was so distraught going up alone and then I finally saw you at the end and then you died and I got so distraught and confused.

It worked out in the end though :D

Journey is cute though. I can see why it got a lot of rewards. At the end of the day though, unless we're doing actual co-op where the other person is in the room with me, I do not like playing games online with other people. Journey is nice in that you just interact with musical sounds, but in some ways... that made it more stressful. I wish I hadn't known that he was an actual person. It would've been nice if I just assumed they were an NPC who just happened to guide you. But oh well.

Glad I got to try it out. ^_^

Also. So pretty.

Arashi - 復活LOVE [review]

The first Arashi single this year has been released and despite only being the song for a CM, they packed a lot of money into this one. So, what do I think of all the effort?