geek post

Last weekend was just gone like that. Felt as if it wasn't that laborious but in actual fact it was quite laborious considering how I already got the 5% participation marks for Stats and how I've already finished doing my part for Business research paper. There's only Psychology left for now, I'm pretty confident that I can finish it by tonight, not so sure about the slides though. Then there's the presentation this Thursday and Quiz 2 for Business as well. As if that's not enough to occupy me, there's so called leadership camp on friday till sunday. Very short indeed but there, have you noticed that another weekend has been taken away from me? Tch, I just can't help thinking how much better it would be if the camp was held during semester breaks. Every student can just go there have fun without worries.

Mom is finally back and someone's starting to act weird again. I wonder why, very much perplexed.

During Psychology class today, Ms. Selena was talking about Sigmund Freud and his theories, the structural theory especially. Images of Evangelion kept popping into my mind. Freud, Evangelion, Freud, Evangelion, yes, that anime Evangelion. Clearly Evangelion was created with a lot of Freudian theories in mind, which makes me wanna rewatch the whole series again just to comprehend more about ego, super-ego and id. See how watching animes can be so beneficial at times? It's a matter of picking the right anime and not some shitty one. Shitty ones are just a waste of time. While I was searching for Eva stuff the other day, I came across a Freudian Eva icon, the artist must have been reading Psychology materials.

 This is actually pretty cool.

.Freud
Photo from BBC 

Eva
Photo from tvtropes.org 

Freud. Again.

Eva. Again.
Photo from Retsgip's Anime Blog 

Anyways, my point is, just little things like this can brighten up my day. Little things as in seeing how my interests pertain to serious issues or how they're interrelated. I don't sound like I make sense. Never mind, after all, I can be such a geek at times.

the evangelion impact

 Photo from blog.rage.com.my

I am utterly ecstatic after watching Evangelion 2.0 at Cathay earlier this evening! Due to transportation problems, I had to go there about 1 hour before the movie starts so you can picture how mundane it was for me. Fortunately the particular hall was opened early. Early by 10 minutes if I'm not wrong. Surprisingly I wasn't the earliest one. A few hardcore EVA fans were already inside, sitting in the dark. There were only stationary ads with annoying radio tunes being played. Soon, the crowd came. Mostly teenage guys. There were very few girls. There were also mid age guys. To my surprise, there was this family with a few kids. Very young kids, most probably around 5. Poor kids, I hope they grasped the movie and were able to tolerate the violence. For the record, I sat between 2 late 20s/early 30s guys. Both came alone and of course I went alone as well. Speak of the Eva spirit!

The vexatious ads and previews were distressing. Impatience was obvious and you can't blame us. It has been how many months since the release of Evangelion 2.0 and it took dog years for it to reach our shores but I'm not gonna complain. Honestly, I feel so blessed that this whole thing is actually taking place. To watch Evangelion 2.0 on such a huge screen with brilliant sound effects! 

It was virtually 2 hours long but it felt like nothing. The battle scenes especially were engaging. There were changes in the storyline as compared to the original series. So far I think it's okay. It was very intriguing to see how they replaced Suzuhara with Asuka during the scene where Shinji was compelled to terminate Unit 03. I prefer the original scene more though because it was more emotional, I can still recall how much I cringed on the night when I watched that episode. Amazing like hell. Ayanami Rei has more emotions. Heck, there's even an obvious love triangle between Asuka, Shinji and Rei which I find to be pretty odd. It seemed as if it's too fast for that considering the facts that Asuka actually loathes Shinji and Rei is too robotic and too in love with Shinji's father instead of Shinji himself. Sick.

Since it's a Rebuild, the CG effects are much better. Even though the art style seems a bit outdated for today's anime, their hairstyle especially, I still think it was beautifully done/retouched. Plentiful additional scenes make it easier for Eva fans to understand the enigma of Evangelion but if someone were to just walk in watch it, there's  ahuge possibility that they'll start getting bored, worse, deride the anime. The soundtrack is truly superb. Love the classic songs and incongruous battle themes. The instrumental version of Thanatos really enhanced the impacts of the fights. Not to exaggerate but I had goosebumps all over during a few scenes, heh, "the evangelion impact".

When the movie ended, most viewers left except for me, 2 guys and another group of teenage boys behind me. I guess we're the hardcore ones. Waited for the credits to finish rolling. I'm not gonna lament about the credits because that is the part where Beautiful World by the goddessUtada Hikaru plays. I love both the original and the acoustic rendition of this song. I have no inkling whether they stayed for the ending song or for the preview of Evangelion 3.0 but I reckon it's the latter. The staff must be exasperated, they switched on the lights and our asses were still glued to the chairs waiting for the preview. Haha!

My notion is that the whole Rebuild of Evangelion thing is mostly fanservice but it's okay since Eva geeks are incredibly loyal and fucking enthusiastic so for sure lots of profits will be generated in Japan. As for little countries like Malaysia, it's a blessing that we have the opportunity to watch this. Once again, millions of thank you, hugs and kisses to the fans who petitioned so hard for this to happen. 

I'm so extremely delighted today because of this. :D

And I'm also glad I didn't download the CAM version of this, else it would've spoiled the fun and excitement.

ramenbox's little self indulgence

Friday has been the happiest day of 2010. 2 amazing events took place and these moments are really going into my "Best Moments of 2010" list. Let's start off with the minor one. Behold, the movie, Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0 : You Can (Not) Advance is finally being screened in Malaysia! At last! I remember I came across news on how Facebook Evangelion fans petitioned for this. Great job to those ardent fans out there. Too bad I'm an inactive FB-er, else I could have contributed a bit. I missed the first one which was back in 2008 but I'm definitely missing this! Exclusively shown in Cathay or TGV Sunway. The ads in the newspapers are  mere black and white, pretty pathetic, but who gives a damn? I've already bought my ticket in advance and they actually claimed how you can not advance. The irony. Heh. Can't wait for tomorrow evening to come.

The next big but not so big thing, the time I spent drooling over a PS3 has come to an end because yours truly  has finally purchased one for herself. Once again, I'd like to stress how money makes the world goes round. Surveyed the prices in OneU but in the end decided to buy it from Sony Style, The Curve. I'm gratified with my final decision because it came with freebies, not to mention the free Milo and warm service from one of thoseguys there. It was a bit difficult to ask about the availability of certain games though because the guy isn't a gamer. Perhaps they should start assigning staff to appropriate sales sections. Nevertheless he was being as helpful as possible.

 Days of frequent visits to the Sony shop just to caress the PS3 are over.

Freebies - A not-so-stylish oversized windbreaker. I wanted a black but apparently there's no black. And a Sony multi-reader.

 

My first ever original video games. Not new releases but hey, quality matters and no one gets bored of Solid Snake.

Personally I feel that it was a good bargain. At least the freebies are both practical things. In fact, the windbreaker is currently with my mom who has just left for Australia. Hopefully a free windbreaker will be enough for the mild weather. Wanted to get GTAIV instead of MGS4 but in the end went ahead and bought MGS4 because it's a PS3-must-get. Elder Scrolls was also reasonable because it includes the expansion pack together with the initial one. How lovely. can things get? It was difficult to choose my first few games but I settled with these both because 1. Dragon Age is still quite expensive for the time being. 2. Final Fantasy XIII Eng Version isn't out yet so these will be more than enough to keep me busy until mid March.

Yes, it's not the hot version with Lightning's super sexy face on it. I guess it's okay but truth be told, I still dream of that limited edition. *sigh* be grateful with what you have, Crystal. :)

For my mom who must be checking in now, wishing her a safe and wonderful journey. Will be missing her for one week. Who wants to cook for me this week?

Evangelion Afterthoughts

Years ago before I got into anime, I've always been curious about this particular character  (the chick with short blue hair ) that I saw everywhere in town. This ubiquitous character left me wondering about her importance. Why is her action figure available in every single anime shop? When I first started using the net during the 90-s, I can still recall how often images of this character or the name "Neon Genesis Evangelion" appear in my search results. It IS rather odd because I was actually searching about something else. It is inevitable, even most forumers would use characters from Evangelion as their avatars / signatures.

Fast forward to 2004. The advent of my newly found addiction. Finally I discovered the "mystery" behind the ever popular Evangelion. Since it's quite an old anime (released in 1995), I had no interests in watching it. It was till 2009 when I downloaded it. The whole file is 10 gb and I managed to download all 26 episodes + 3 movies in less than 24 hours, via torrent of course. Impressive. Then I realize, this series must have really really hardcore fans who are willing to seed the files at such rate. This speed is considered quite good for Malaysia's broadband. Well, I finally watched the whole series together with its movies. In fact, I just finished End of Evangelion about 30 minutes ago.

Never in my life have I cringed so much just from watching an anime. I'm serious, Never. I was so ludicrously overwhelmed by what this anime has to offer. At first glance it looks like some stupid mech anime, which I don't really dig but I still ended up watching it just to find out for myself why the strong fanbase? After watching it, no doubt it is truly an anime which has successfully revolutionized the anime industry. I can now see where most animes draw their ideas from. It's so obvious. Since the animes that I've watched are those made after 2000, I have to say that after I watched Evangelion, other animes that I've previously watched are all child's play. I kid you not. It utterly changed my perspectives.

WHY? It's deep and it's serious and it's dark and I can go on and on about why this anime is such a masterpiece. The characters are all designed well, physically and personality wise. The show does not just touch the characters on the surface, there's a lot of character development/exploration going on. The main thing, its storyline causes viewers to keep analyzing and think think think. It's not a stupid child cartoon where the line between good and bad is clearly drawn. Difficulty in comprehending its ending is what virtually every single viewer faced out there. Despite its dino-age release date, there are still active forums on the net where users discuss the ending. Oh, and I was saying, it's not some crappy mech anime. In fact, it's not really mech. There's a whole lot more to the anime. In addition to all the greatness, there's a great deal of psychological factors involved which might be disturbing. The voice acting enhances the overall experience and impact of the anime. There were many scenes that made me cringed like crazy because of the VA.

I don't wanna sound like I'm fangirling because I'm not but  I'm merely stating the fact that it's brilliant. Evangelion is a bona fide anime and I think every single person who loves anime should watch it, that is if you haven't. Or maybe if you think anime is childish, watch Evangelion, it's an enigma. I believe most people out there only watch stuff like Naruto or Bleach and other newer animes but seriously, watch Evangelion. NGE is vehement on so many levels.