I haven't touched the Wii much lately, dunno why. Console games aren't as fun when played alone, I suppose. Anyhow, I'm looking forward to Mega Man 9, which are to be released as Wiiware, meaning you pay a few quid and download it straight to the Wii. In other words, no huge arse games. Mega Man 9 will feature graphics and sound resembling the games released on the Nes. But I'm rambling..

I decided to have a look around the Wiiware shop, just to get a feel for what they're currently offering, and found a platformer that looked promising -- LostWinds. This won't be a proper review, I've only just tried the game for 10 minutes...

Once you start the game and decide which save-file to play you're immediately thrown into the game. Litteraly. You play as a little fella called Toku, and after a little stroll in the woods, the ground crumbles and he falls into a cave. While trying to get out he encounters the wind spirit, Enril, who lends the power of Gust, a power that will Toku fly to platforms that are otherwise out of reach. Using Gust you can also interact with various objects, such as fruit and torches. Also, just about anything will blow around a bit if you move the cursor over it, the wind blowing through bushes makes a pretty realistic sound.

The graphics are really cute with warm colours and controlling Toku is heaps of fun. I'll sit down at some stage and play through LostWinds and write a perhaps more proper review (or edit this one, who knows)...

If the title of this movie had been any much longer, I would have been in trouble.

I'm quite a fan of Tim Burton. I've fallen in love with Corpse Bride, been frightened (albeit not overly) by Sleepy Hollow and touched by Edward Scissorhands (maybe scarred would have been a better word, hehe).

Teaming up for their sixth movie together (which reminds me I have yet to see Ed Wood), Burton brings us Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street with Johhny Depp in the lead as the barber, Sweeney.

Based on a musical by Stephen Sondheim, it tells the story of Benjamin Barker, a barber falsely charged and sentenced to a life of hard labour in Australia by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who lusts after Barker's wife Lucy. Fifteen years later, under the assumed name "Sweeney Todd", Barker escapes the penal colony by sea. Upon arrival in London, Todd returns to his old flat above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop on Fleet Street. There Lovett tells him that his wife took poison after being raped by Turpin, who then adopted Todd's daughter Johanna as his ward. Todd vows revenge and reopens his barber shop in his upstairs flat, with ill intent in mind.

I loved it! While I'm not a huge fan of musicals, this one was really well made. The sceneries in this movie are breathtaking, portraying London in the 1800's as a dark yet very much alive city, shrouded by mystery and romance. When I first heard that Johhny Depp would be singing I had my doubts, but he's doing a really good job, his voice and tone really fits the character.

It's a bloody tale, but one that enchants. So how's it gonna be? How about a shave?

I decided to grab hiragana by the horns and have a go at it, learning a few of the phonetic characters at a time. Figured five or so characters every couple of days might work, but I'll see how I do.

There's 46 basic hiragana syllables (shown on the right), and I started from the top with A (あ), I (い), U (う), E (え), and O (お). So far, あ has been a bitch to write, the last swirl never turns out right. I think it's partially because of my otherwise pretty sloppy handwriting; sometimes I'm having a hard time reading what I wrote myself (which probably means I should have opted to become a doctor).

I don't know how far my brother got in his studies, but when I get about that far (in terms of the reading and understanding), I'll drag him along. It'll be more fun doing this together with someone. (Back to school, let's compare notes!). :)

(I had a hard time figuring out how to get the Japanese characters to display properly, at first they only came up as ?'s for me, but then I realised the database was set for Swedish chars... Silly thing.. You may have trouble seeing the chars properly unless you have Japanese support installed).

My brother calls me a weeaboo. Boo hoo, a weeaboo. But what does it mean?

Weeaboo, also known as 'wapanese', is a slang word used to describe “someone who is obsessed with Japan, Japanese Culture, Anime, etc. and attempts to act as if they were Japanese, even though they're far from it.”

Now, I'm not obsessed with either Japan, the Japanese culture or anime, nor do I act as if I were Japanese, but I am sporting a growing interest. There's a lot of the Japanese culture and traditions that I would like to try, take a part in and taste for myself. I won't dig deep into any of them here, but mention a few things.

For instance, the futon sounds and looks really comfortable and is said to be great to sleep on if you have a bad back. Guess what, I got one of those. A bad back that is, not a futon.

Japan is known for a lot of strange food, for good and for bad. Everyone knows of sushi - rice and raw fish (optionally wrapped in seaweed and dipped in soy). It's quite delicious. Something that looks rather suspicious but is rumored to be tasty is the chocolate larva, a creepy looking candy grub. Another thing i wanted to try is the canned bishoujo bread... Canned bread?!

I'm doing a self-study on speaking Japanese (I'll write more on that later on) and am concidering taking a course in Japanese at some stage. (I decided to learn to speak before I learn to write, because my brother took a few classes at some stage and the pace was rather high - it'd give some advantage knowing a little bit more beforehand, I'd hope).

Yeah, so that was a little out-of-context about Japan and stuff. I'm pondering a bigger purpose of this blog, and the topic of Japan might just be it. Just might. We'll see.

Kazuki and Yuuji were childhood friends, but Yuuji had to leave for 10 years. When Kazuki finds out he is coming back, she is anticipating what kind of man he has become. Despite her illusions, he turns out to be a dirty pervert who is trying to win her love (or body?). In spite of her disappointment, she begins to realize that despite Yuuji's lewd ways, he values their long friendship and Kazuki's kind older sister, Hatsune, tries to help their relationship along. Meanwhile, Yuuji’s little sister, Marie, punishes his lustful outbursts by shooting him with a painful, but non-lethal, automatic air rifle.

It's not great, but it's absolutely not bad; Tona-Gura gets stuck somewhere in the middle. I liked it and it left me with a smile, wishing the serie had gone on for longer as it had potential. The story is pretty bland and never really kicks off, but still, I enjoyed watching it.

I ended up destroying my old theme (I tend to do that when I get a little bored with it) so I figured I'd find a new one. This one will do just fine.

I decided to change the name of the blog to the slightly less depressing "Mangek's blog". Why? Not sure, but it's easier to find a subtle theme this way (With a name as Dirge for November, you kind of expect a darkish theme, and frankly I'm a little bored with that).

So, welcome to my new little old blog.. ;-]

Edit: Decided to change the name around a bit again, see what I like. It may or may not change again, depending.. :-]

The Melancholy is a story about the every day life of Haruhi Suzumiya, a young and very active high school girl. It's narrated from the point of view of one of her classmates, Kyon. It's clear from the first day that there's something odd about Miharu, when during her introduction she explains that she has no interrest in ordinary humans, but would rather like to meet with timetravelers, aliens or espers.

This was a crazy fun show to watch, even though I got to watch the episodes "out of order". The episodes were aired in a nonlinear order, and I decided to watch them as such (aligning them in their chronological order would require some thinking, and my head hurts, boo hoo).

If you're a fan of paranormal comedies, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya will rock your socks. :-]

After a massive land subsidence, most of the world are covered in water. Aika Sumeragi is a salvager working for a small company. Together with the company president's daughter, Rion, she embarks on a mission to retrieve an artifact called Lagu. They're not the only ones looking for the Lagu though, and before long they are captured.......by a guy who's housing an army of a harem, or something to that extent. The entire army is made up of girls in short skirts...

This serie was a lot of fun to watch, even though there were no heavy character developments. On the other hand, there's tons and tons of panties. Yes, panties! Short skirts means panties! There's a pantyshot about once every 20 seconds all throughout the serie. Boiiiing! :-]