Maaya news

Unfortunately, it looks like the second Macross Frontier OST came out without a Maaya version of Aimo. But the fans still have hope that an OST 3 will be released with said track. *fingers crossed* (I'm not sure if these are Macross fans or YK fans or Maaya fans, but the more the merrier.)

On the flip side, it looks like there IS a new Maaya album in the works. Unfortunately, it is without an album cover, title, or track listing so far. (But it does look like Yoko Kanno is at least partially involved this time. I know some other fans were not happy when Maaya's last album was done without YK's involvement, but I liked it fine, and got some stamps I will never use out of it.

Kazeyomi [w/ DVD, Limited Edition]

Maaya Sakamoto

Of course, there's the requisite affiliate link for me to get a cut back from my own purchases. Not surprisingly, no one has purchased anything from CDjapan using my affiliate links. What is surprising though, is the number of clicks:

2008-10 16 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-09 9 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-08 16 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-07 14 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-06 24 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-05 34 0 0 yen 0 yen
2008-04 9 1 12480 yen 624 yen <== that's me!

I wonder if it's just random bots or people who came via google somehow clicking through. Don't worry folks, cdjapan doesn't show me what you bought: I can only speculate what you spent that x amount of yen on.

The HD dilemma

I have a nice computer. I have a nice monitor (23" LCD hp 2335, 1920x1200). I have a nice audio setup (Sondigo Inferno w/ optical out to Onkyo 5.1 speaker system). I want to watch blu-ray movies.

Simple, I thought, I'll just buy a blu-ray drive. I wonder how much they cost. Hey look, I can get a Pioneer blu-ray drive that also burns DVD's for $160. Great!

Oh, but I guess I need software to play blu-ray disks. Hey, there's an even cheaper Asus drive that's a retail version with software. Oh wait, that software is crap and only does stereo: that's retarded.

Oh, and my setup isn't HDCP. Wait, WTF? I need a new video card, a new monitor, and it looks like the software to decode and play might not even be XP compatible? That is RIDICULOUS. THANKS A LOT, FCC. WAY TO CAVE IN TO HOLLYWOOD INTERESTS.

Here's the problem: there are three classes of people, only one of whom actually gets screwed over by this HDCP/DRM nonsense:

1: the uploaders/pirates: DRM isn't going to stop them. AnyDVD HD is available for relatively cheap and will do the job.

2: the downloaders: DRM already removed and files uploaded by pirates, so HDCP setup is not needed, just a sufficiently fast computer and software that isn't restrictive like the commercial Blu-ray playing software. XMBC apparently will do the job just fine, even on computers with anemic video cards.

3: honest consumers: willing to buy blu-ray drive, blu-ray disks, even reasonably-priced software to play back the movies. (even after using various free software to play back plain vanilla DVD discs) Not willing to upgrade to Vista, pay $100 to PLAY BACK A MOVIE, buy a new GFX card, and a new monitor.

So, you ask, what's the problem? Just use AnyDVD HD to rip a blu-ray to your hard drive and use XMBC to play it back. Sure, except for a couple of things:

1) I shouldn't have to give up 20+ gigs and ripping time to play back a movie I own when I have hardware that is capable of playing it.

2) Oh yeah, it's illegal thanks to the DMCA. Thanks a lot Congress.

PS: filed under TV as well, cuz of Blu-Ray Firefly. Mmm, naked Nathan Fillion Morena Baccarin.

Macross F (eps 14) - Maaya!

After a long wait (13 episodes), we finally get to see/hear Maaya in Macross F (other than the opening song, of course).

Apparently, if I had watched the credits or stuck around to read the comments, I would have known a full week earlier that Maaya was voicing Ranka's mom, but alas, I'm not THAT bored.

It was great to hear Maaya's rendition of Aimo, considering she is credited with lyrics (?) on the soundtrack. Too bad, we only get like 15 secs before Ranka's seiyuu takes over. Grr.... Hopefully, this means that we can expect a Maaya version to appear on CD in the future. Macross F's 2nd soundtrack perhaps?

Oh, the timestamp is 17:30 for those other Maaya freaks who don't care about the show's mediocre plot or giant robots and just want to skip to the good part. :)

awesomeness

Maaya's new single Triangler has now been in the top 10 on the Japanese Billboard for weekly singles for two weeks now! Apparently, this is the first of Maaya's singles to break the top 10, although she has had albums in the top 10 (album ranking) before.

Go Maaya!

In other news, my lab mates wanted to know what wiki pages I had created. While my entry for the almighty kuwanger no longer exists, tracking the history of Maaya's wiki page reveals me as the creator. At least, I remembering writing it, and I doubt there were a large number of Maaya fans using wikipedia during August of 2003 in Gaithersburg, MD. Yay for being technologically aware! (and a fan of somewhat obscure things. Computational origami anyone?)

And I promise, the food posts are coming!

time to buy more music

For some reason, I was approved to be a CDJapan affiliate. I guess that means I can now post links to items from their website and get some kickback if purchases are made. Even better, apparently I can take advantage of this to get kickbacks for my own purchases. Undoubtedly this is probably the ONLY way I will get any benefit from this system, and yet, I got approval to be an affiliate.

Anyway, that being said, first up are the latest singles from Maaya Sakamoto. (*sniff*, she used to have her own special page on cdjapan's website, but now she's not even listed under female jpop artists)

Triangler, the new intro theme to Macross Frontier. (As previously blogged, I have high hopes for this series.)

Saigo no Kajitsu, the intro theme to Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations. I'm not sure what the relationship is between that and Tsubasa Chronicle.

damn anime companies!

When are you going to get some voice actors who can pronounce words correctly. Japanese pronunciation ... not that hard. What was really bad was how they completely screwed up the names in Noir. Seriously, a film-noir-ish anime about French femme fatales, and Mireille becomes "Miriel" (think "Muriel" with an initial "Mi" instead of "Mu")?

Anyway, I figured it might be interesting to see how Funimation decided to pitch Aquarion, given that you can stream the first episode from IGN. The intro was somewhat amusing for its military-esque description of Deava, which is more or less accurate, but made it seem a little too sci-fi-ish when I think Aquarion belongs in the middle of the fantasy genre. The hilarious part was at the end of the introduction voice-over, when it suddenly got hints of American Idol: "which of these youngsters are going to be chosen as the final pilots of Aquarion?"

Well, what can you do? It takes a lot of money to get into anime publishing these days, and the Japanese studios are pretty wary of modern distribution systems.

this made my day.

link

Finally, Maaya and YK collaborate again. I think a lot of people were sad when they went different ways in 2005, but it's not like her work has gotten worse (though that is the opinion of some people). It does have a slightly different feel now, but I still enjoy it.

Anyway, the probably biggest draw for this on the anime side is that this the return of an anime produced by Shoji Kawamori, scored by Yoko Kanno, with an opening sung by Maaya. Last time this happened, we got Escaflowne. Previous Shoji Kawamori and Yoko Kanno works (without the presence of Maaya) have ranged from the somewhat cult-ish and strange (Arjuna) to the rather episodic, but fairly fun to watch (Aquarion). Oh yeah, and this is for Macross Frontier, the new series for Macross's 25th anniversary (which is probably why the new fighter is the YF-25). So, hopefully we can get some more fans from the Macross-watching pool.

Anime-induced epilepsy

Nowadays, it is fairly common to see a warning that appears before the opening sequence of an anime. For example, consider the following warning that precedes Minami-ke:

(Minami-ke is one of my favorite series of the fall season. The character-based comedy is very well done, and it doesn't seem like it's going to take a nosedive like Zetsubou Sensei.)

Ok, so what is the origin of such a warning. Well, when reading a book, it is advised to have a decent amount of light so as to not strain the eyes. However, because a television emits its own light, there is usually plenty of light to see what's going on in the TV. As far as distance is concerned, I don't think there is any real reason for keeping the attended region small on the retina, so much as ensuring that strain is not occurring due to focusing on a nearby object for an extended period of time. (Books are generally another story, because there is constant movement of the eyes, I think.)

I checked out some of my anime DVD's and wasn't able to find a warning, so presumably, it only happens for the Japanese television broadcast. One way to check my hypothesis would be to examine anime broadcasts recorded prior to 1997 and broadcasts made after 1997 to see if the presence of the warning jumps from zero to a high percentage.

To understand the origins of this warning, I think we need a trip back to 1997, when the now infamous "Dennō Senshi Porygon" (でんのうせんしポリゴン) episode of Pokémon was aired in Japan. At some point in the episode, an explosion occurs that results in flashing of bright red and blue lights at 12Hz for 6 sec total. (4 sec for most of the screen, and 2 sec for all of the screen) Of course, these are prime conditions for inducing photosensitive epilepsy: high contrast, red color (certain wavelengths work "better" than others), a frequency between 5 and 30 Hz, and flashing across a large portion of the visual field. The episode is now banned worldwide, and hundreds of Japanese children were treated for symptoms, although mass hysteria resulted in some 12,000 individuals reporting symptoms. You can find more details on wikipedia's articles for photosensitive epilepsy and Dennō Senshi Porygon. The large number of epileptic victims was probably due to the extreme popularity of Pokémon, a show whose primary audience falls right into the population that is most susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy. The "best" part of the story is that, in a stroke of pure stupidity, Japanese news programs that reported on the story later that day, replayed the scenes in question, sending a second round of epileptic victims to hospitals.

Ok, so what then, does the warning accomplish. By increasing distance to the television, the amount of visual field occupied by the television is decreased. Also, increasing ambient light decreases the resulting contrast of scenes presented. While these changes serve to alleviate the inducing of photosensitive epilepsy, it probably is not terribly important, as I'm sure television producers are now aware of the conditions to avoid so that viewers don't develop symptoms.

Math in Reideen

Here is a screenshot from the 4 minute mark in Reideen, a remake of the original Reideen anime from the 70's. Besides the fact that student multiplied by a binomial including a radical ONLY to resort to the quadratic formula, can you spot the error?

Also, I do not condone doing that much mental math when multiplying polynomials involving radicals. That's how you make errors. (The final answer is correct, but one of the equations is incorrect.)


I'm also somewhat disturbed by this "hint" from a friend. I hope it's a joke from the fansubbers...