[witty title]

"Kaze ni azukete" came out as a single in 1999, and appeared the following year on their second album "Station". (It has a PV!) Their 2001 compilation album "Have a Good Journey" included a slightly different version with a longer instrumental intro.

I've listened to almost half of advantage Lucy's songs at this point, and this one easily makes my top five. (Also on that top five: "so"; "Shiosai" (潮騒); & this song's B-side, "smile again". My romaji of "smile again" is forthcoming, & I intend to eventually romanize "Shiosai" as well.)

There's already a perfectly good romaji version available on various English- & Brazilian-language lyrics sites (probably originating from a Brazilian fan, though I can't find the original source); also Sedgwick on jpopasia took a decent crack at it.

My version adds my best guess of what the instrumentalists are singing in the background ("it's a blue sky" is...hard to make out), as well as the ending lines that don't appear in the kanji lyrics ("asatte ga kite" &c.).

( we're all fine here )

* the last part of the song is backed by the entire band singing along with the guitar melody: ((ba baba baa ba  ba ba babaa ba)) but, like, a million times. I considered trying to include it in the lyrics but gave it up as a bad job.

(This one isn't super important since everyone already has the lyrics, but I wanted to post (& tweak) it anyway.)

"so" is in english, off their first album FANFARE (ファンファーレ) under Toshiba-EMI in 1999. Guitarist Ishizaka Yoshiharu composed it, & also wrote the lyrics along with Lynne Hobday, a British expat living in Tokyo.


( it just keeps escalating )

It may not look like much just from the words but this song is fire???

EDIT: I started adding links to the editors' amv.org pages and, uh, LJ yelled at me about the post being too long? So this is now split into 2006-2008, 2009-2012, and 2013-2016, because. Reasons.


Lo and behold!  A sort-of comprehensive list of the 2013-2016 Anime Boston AMV Contest Finalists and Winners!*

* = DISCLAIMER OF DISCLAIMING:  In no particular order in some cases, because I don't remember the original order and/or I lost my original notes and had to look up the information again.  And if there's more than two or three sources of video or audio, I get lazy and put (various)!  Except if the sources are all in the same canon--then I just list the most obvious.  For instance, I'm not going to list every single Kingdom Hearts game used in a video.  (Actually, anything in parentheses below the title that's not in quotation marks is probably a note that I'm not totally sure about something.)

...Okay, so maybe 'comprehensive' was a poor choice of words.  There's a pretty good chance I fucked up somewhere, like on the AMV maker / AMV studio thing, so uh.  Don't quote me on this?


KEY:
Title of AMV -- AWARD(S) WON (TECHNICAL OR AUDIENCE)
"Title of Song" by Artist Name
Title of Source Anime
Name of AMV editor


( AB '13 )


( AB '14 )


( AB '15 )

( AB '16 )

[07] = (...I'm...really not sure how this one made it to the finals?  It's...not really an AMV.  :/ )
[08] = (Giant robots...wearing high-top sneakers...playing magic basketball...IN SPACE. I--I didn't even know I needed this in my life. ♥)
[09] = (Yes, this song won Best Romance again. It was a really good AMV though!)
[10] = ("Fun" switched categories this year for no discernable reason)
[11] = (New category!  About time, too.  And the total number of finalists actually went up to 35! Possibly because 30 splits neatly into 5 and 6, but 7 not so much...)
[12] = (There were four One Punch Man vids this year. Four. Literally every other category had one.  I'm guessing people liked the anime, then?)
[13] = (Upbeat and Fun/Comedy switched places this year for no discernable reason)
[14] = (The same song, twice in one contest!  That might be a first for AB.)

For the past two-and-a-half years I've been working in a specialty sweets shop that masquerades as a grocery/deli.  Inevitably, I started trying the cookies and chocolates we carry--and we carry a lot of different kinds of cookies & chocolates, imported & local & megabrands alike.  Here are some of the most memorable:


CADBURY CREME EGG COOKIES(/Biscuits)
( 1/5 )

OREO MEGA STUF Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
( 3/5 )

Chewy CHIPS AHOY! OREO CREME FILLED Soft Cookies
( 0/5 )( 3/5 )( 5/5 )( 4/5 )( 4/5 )( 4/5 )( 4/5 )( 4/5 )( 5/5 )( (footnote) )

[[EDIT: I switched browsers and spent a full hour on an honest, good-faith attempt to crosspost this on Tumblr.  LJ code is incompatible there, so I did a lot of googling and swapping out terms.  I followed the instructions to the letter (in every sense of the phrase), but it still completely rejected the color formatting; after the third time switching between editing modes completely trashed the html and turned line and paragraph breaks upside down, I gave up.  Fuck that noise.]]
[[SON OF EDIT: finally up on tumblr! (sans colors.)]]

So here's something I did a lot of work on last spring, and intended to post about, but obviously that never happened.  (I'm always most creatively driven when I have something else to be procrastinating from...)

This is a version where two teams, from a human world and a troll world, are told that they're going to be competing against aliens to win--I'm too lazy to look at the notes right now, but I think both worlds are threatened with destruction and the winning team gets to save their planet and/or create a new one.  (At least, that's what they're told at first.)  Different home planets, same Medium; yes, that means shared moons.  I'm ignoring any alpha/beta revisionverses in favor of there being one human team and one troll team, each with nine members; I ignored about half the Noah because of characterization reasons (if I only know three things about them, one of those being their name, I can't get into their headspace).  Humans are largely Exorcists, trolls are largely Noah; I didn't feel creative enough to try mixing that up, vice versa or with integrated teams.

I actually have a semi-fleshed-out storyline for this 'verse, where two-thirds of the characters (including all time/space players) die horribly for one reason or another and the remaining six have to team up for survival, regardless of species (and regardless of who may have murdered whom in the past).  I'll go over some of that in a later post, maybe?  Same for lands, sprites, backstories, etc.  (wrt titles: I spent a looooong time angsting over classes and aspects, based on my understanding/headcanon from something like a few years ago.  At some point I intend to research more recent developments in canon for that.  I still haven't read beyond D.Gray-chapter 203, and the last page of HS I read had Jade meeting Calliope in a dream.  It's been awhile.)

FORMAT:
> Full Name (Nicknames if they have any)
> [Handle if known]
> Title
> [Symbol if known]
> Typing Quirk
> Strife Specibus
> Dreamself Notes

EARTHLING HUMAN PLAYERS:
( some black-order folks )

ALTERNIAN TROLL PLAYERS:
( some anti-order folks )

(yo!  *waves*  so I'm not as prolific or social as I used to be.  oh well.  I intend to keep this up, anyway, even if it is down to, like, one update a year.  I got projects and shit that I may or may not eventually get up here.  so much cross-concepting...)

So, in the same vein as Kirikirimai and In Our Dreams, here's my take of the lyrics to Elizaveta's recent English-language EP "HERO".  All of these are based on my perception of the words spoken, not necessarily the original intent; where I'm entirely unclear on what the hell she's singing, I'll note it with italics and plenty of bewildered question marks.

01. HERO
02. RED BALLOON
03. SORRY
04. SPACEMAN
05. GOD ONLY KNOWS

01. HERO
Elizaveta posted her official lyrics here on her blog, but the background is unnoted and there are occasional differences (asterisked).  For the Russian part, I have the original lyrics she posted in Cyrillic and a tentative transliteration beneath.

( I'm the one who will fall )


02. RED BALLOON
Elizaveta posted her official version of the first part of the first verse here on her tumblr, but not the rest of the lyrics, and there's a word substitution on the EP track ("flew" instead of "took"). (I'm ignoring the "ba ba da, ba ba da, ...ba ba da; ba ba da, ba ba da, ba ba da ba da ba da" bit during the latter part of the final chorus for reasons of clutter and inability to appropriately represent the vocal layering without winding up with an incomprehensible wall of text.)

( I want to fly forever )


03. SORRY
Someone posted a version of these lyrics on a popular lyric site, but I disagree on a few points (asterisked).  (Also it sounds like the song was recorded in a bathroom with so-so acoustics, but I'm sure it's an artistic choice, alongside all that vibrato...)

( I don't care if I let you down )


04. SPACEMAN
I am excessively fond of this song, even if I'm dubious about the use of dubstep in it, but for the life of me I can't confidently identify a number of the lines.  Auuugh.  Mondegreen lines italicized.

( can you hear me now )


05. GOD ONLY KNOWS
This one is fairly short, sweet, and simple, compared to the multilayered clusterfucks above.  Also a nice conclusion to the album.  If there only wasn't that one damn line...

( the song I'll never sing for you )


:D

Woo, it's been a while. I have a lot to do WRT updating this blog, if I do keep it updated--D.Gray-chapters, that other d_t convo, the AB AMV post...not to mention all the cross-concepting I've been doing. Oh well, one thing at a time.

D.Gray-stuck! (not to be confused with D.Troll-man)

DISCLAIMER
-- I haven't actually caught up with the canon DGM chapters from 204 onward...I keep intending to, and not doing it
-- and the last thing I remember keeping up with re: Homestuck was John waking up from his tantrum-induced dreambubble convo with Vriska and Tavros
-- and of course I read through the first few thousand pages of HS on a device that refused to view the Flash pages, which was super confusing and it's only the recaps that helped me understand anything at all; I'm trying to finish remedying that now, and also catch up, but it's pretty time-consuming

So, the Fab Four as the Kids, the Noah as the Trolls, the Earl and the 14th as the Cherubs, and I'm too lazy to put much thought into ectobiological shenanigans right now.  Not really interested in the game mechanics e.g. denizens and consorts and carapaces and exiles etc., but the titles and lands and locations and themes etc. will be addressed.

( setting )

So!  I've mostly been working with the Fab Four/Kids angle.  Here's what I've got so far:

( Allen, Knight of Hope )

( Kanda, Prince of Life )

( Lenalee, Maid of Space )

( Lavi, Mage of Time )


*I'm assuming someone's made this joke about Caliborn/Lord English already

EDIT: I started adding links to the editors' amv.org pages and, uh, LJ yelled at me about the post being too long? So this is now split into 2006-2008, 2009-2012, and 2013-2016, because. Reasons.


I've been compiling lists of the winners and finalists in AB's Music Video Contest that I've seen at the conventions (just the winners from '06, '07, and '08, and all of the finalists from '09-present; in 2005 I didn't see any of them at all and therefore did not get the visceral effect of a video and audio system larger than my laptop, so I do not care, and '09 was the first year I actually went to the Contest showing instead of just watching the winners in Closing Ceremonies and/or the Masquerade).  I've been keeping it all in draft(s) on my Gmail account, which is where I keep all of my notes these days because (a) dude, it's searchable (b) my computer haets word processors with all the passion its battered little electronic soul can muster up (c) you can google your notes, how freaking awesome is that.  (Even if that means that I now have to find a backup for my cloud backup, and I'm not sure how...  *headdesk*)

Anyway!  I figure the draft is getting a little long for Gmail (on my computer, at least) to deal with without slowing down a little, so I'm putting it up here.

Lo and behold!  A sort-of comprehensive list of the 2006-2016 Anime Boston AMV Contest Winners and 2009-2016 AMV Contest Finalists!*

* = DISCLAIMER OF DISCLAIMING:  In no particular order in some cases, because I don't remember the original order and/or I lost my original notes and had to look up the information again.  And if there's more than two or three sources of video or audio, I get lazy and put (various)!  Except if the sources are all in the same canon--then I just list the most obvious.  For instance, I'm not going to list every single Kingdom Hearts game used in a video.  (Actually, anything in parentheses below the title that's not in quotation marks is probably a note that I'm not totally sure about something.)

...Okay, so maybe 'comprehensive' was a poor choice of words.  There's a pretty good chance I fucked up somewhere, like on the AMV maker / AMV studio thing, so uh.  Don't quote me on this?


KEY:
Title of AMV -- AWARD(S) WON (TECHNICAL OR AUDIENCE)
"Title of Song" by Artist Name
Title of Source Anime
Name of AMV editor



( AB '06 )


( AB '07 )


( AB '08 )


[1] = (The listing of this only mentioned Das Omen, but the beginning part, with that woman praying--Misato, from Evangelion?--is Lauf der Zeit.)
[2] = ("Genkaiten (subeta wa watashi no bankai wo shiranai)", or...well, I don't remember the translation of the first word, but the gist of the subtitle is basically "whatchu know 'bout me!?" ...or something.)
[3] = (I have no idea who this person is, BUT I LOVE THEM FOREVER.  I just.  First the one that finally made it worth it that Boston was the only city in America that felt the need to call the bomb squad on a frigging Light Bright, and then the one that totally justified my finding Totoro creepy as a child, while simultaneously violating the childhoods of several thousand people.  In the same contest, no less.  That takes talent.)

I, like many a starving college student/otaku/anyone on a budget or unwilling to wait more than 3 minutes (plus boiling water) to make food, have eaten a lot of cup ramen.  I'm a Maruchan brand loyalist, mostly because Top Ramen tastes fucking bizarre, and am most fond of their popular neon-orange-packaged Chicken flavor (although I did have a brief fling with the neon pink Shrimp flavor...those tiny freeze-dried crustaceans kind of creeped me out).  I also have been known to make a decent stir-fry with packaged ramen (using half a flavor packet to a whole package of noodles, draining the water before adding the flavoring, and including a healthy chunk of 100% real motherfucking butter, bitches).  You might say that I'm almost an instant ramen aficionado.

This, however, I did not see coming.

( lol cheese ramen )

Of course, the ingredients list explains everything:

( lookit me, I'm a table! )

Basically, they took regular 'chicken ramen' broth powder and added cheese sauce powder.  Not very original, but, being lazy myself, I give this one an 'E' for the '(Total Lack of) Effort'.  Probably would not buy again, but if I had to eat it again, I wouldn't bitch about it too much.

( ask the internet: )


(Also, I am twenty-one as of yesterday at 02:36 AM.  Woo.

^o.o^

vo.ov

>o.o>

<o.o<

Okay, enough old-school text!emoticon dancing, my attention span can't handle much more.)

CHAPTER INDEX
CHAPTER 193
CHAPTER 194 (was not interesting enough to take notes on, apparently)
CHAPTER 195
CHAPTER 196
CHAPTER 197
CHAPTER 198
CHAPTER 199 (a.k.a. "the D.Gray-version of Naruto #347 and #386, combined")


200 - "SEED OF DESTRUCTION"  (that doesn't sound ominous at all)

( 01-13: back to the beginning )

( 14-21: those other characters no one cares about )

( 22-32: aaand lvellie loses his shit )

(Seriously, though, if that was Kanda's death scene, the only thing preventing me from cutting a bitch will be the fear of getting lumped in with all the scandalised Kanda/Yullen/etc. fangirls.  Ain't no fandom like shameful, guilt-tripping, self-hating fandom~)