IROHA.NU

“What? Another (trashy) shoujo manga?”

Wrong.

A blind swordsman, a young precog, urban crimes, violence, gory deaths and sliced limbs are a regular appearance. What more, the only teenager in the manga (!) makes herself useful and actually jumps into the action to help out!

Despite the possible first wrong impressions, the title is very significant. The basic storyline is introduced in the first chapter and it is very simple; a girl hires a badass blind guy to save her from the criminal world which is after her 90% accurate precognition. He’s hired for life.

For a while it’s all action and adventure, which is excellent and… perhaps not very original, however…

Somewhere at the end of volume 2 an incredibly interesting plotline is introduced. You see it coming from the very beginning, then either forget or are either convinced ‘that thing’ couldn’t possibly happen… only to get smacked in the face again, and not all too subtly. The twist is nearly comedic and had me fall over of laughter and shock. Then I knew I got hooked. When the spice has been added, you’ll only want more and I sure did want more!

With the exception of Haruka, the whole cast is adult, which gives an established feel… with lots of room to explore the various background stories and weave it into the present. The character development happens at steady pace, so nothing is rushed.

The manga’s major selling point is Mamoru Hijikata… a blind, ruthless, manly, intelligent martial arts prodigy turned murderer, now a crime hunter…. and a very good looking one at that. I think he’s incredibly hot and GAR. Of course he attracts fanboys AND fangirls like a freaking magnet and wraps them all around his deadly katana single handedly. Don’t be surprised if you fall for him too.

Since Haruka is only a child there isn’t much to say yet about her personality, but so far she’s proven to be quite compatible with the others. Naturally, it will be interesting to see her development as she grows up surrounded by a bunch of emotionally messed up people, who act like her surrogate family. I predict she’ll be kicking a lot of ass in the future.

The art is eye candy! For a debuting manga artist in Japan DOUBLE-S is already no amateur at his job. He’s a master. The art is great from the beginning, but the quality starts to shine from volume 4 and it only improved to my astonishment! I honestly wish I could draw like that.

(continue reading…)

As it has become apparent I have lost interest in making layouts, managing and joining fanlistings, I decided to put an end to my dawdling ‘fanlisting career’. I have been approved for 40 fanlistings, in the end only keeping nine… which are all going to be adopted out or closed at the end of this year. Yes, none will be kept (I do keep the databases, just in case).

It’s been a fun 4 years, because of fanlistings I started getting into the website managing for real (excepting one certain fansite slipup hehe), went through various domains and became a staff member at TPFL. Graphic skills and technical understandings have been improved greatly as well.

So why…?

I guess I’m bored easily with doing the same things over and over again. I can’t keep my interests for very long and in this case it became a chore. Oh well.

Now, what am I going to do with 0:00 A.M.? Delete it? I’m not sure, I could always keep up the collective for the joined page…. and I rather like the Sheryl layout. I’ll decide in 2009 about its fate. I’ll keep you updated.

By the way. the fanlistings which are up for adoption are HERE.

Ironically the band ACID who did the song 0:00 A.M. is pretty much disbanded. Gah. D:

Previously titled: Northern Cross – the Male version

I uploaded the following to YouTube. It is the newest ending theme to Macross Frontier by May’n… or isn’t it?

EDIT: got kicked out of Youtube, just listen to the song in the link below.

I’ve played this over and over again and can’t get tired of it. IMHO I think it sounds better than the original. This voice suits the song better I think, both are good though.

Who is singing this version by the way? … don’t be surprised, it’s all May’n. It’s all the work of technology and she happens to be one of the few whose voice and type of songs are perfect for converting into a male pitch. Does anybody know where I can find a guy who has a similar voice?

Download or preview here: http://www.box.net/shared/q3y8fc24pp

If you’re a member of the macross_f community at LiveJournal, you may want to check out the post where I uploaded pretty much every song in a male pitch (yes I’m insane, but batch conversions rock).

Before you ask: “how did you manage to do this?!” Instead of remaining secretive I’ll answer for you instead: The easiest way to do this is to get the foobar2000 player with the Soundtouch DSP plugin downloaded to the components folder. Then you need to adjust it in Preferences > Playback > DSP manager > activate SoundTouch and then configure pitch adjust to -3,00 semitones. Optionally you can convert these into separate mp3’s.

If you do that you can pretty much play your entire female vocal music library in a “male pitch”, without even downloading the mp3 I provided. Be warned, not every converted song will sound as great as this one.