Hendy's Blog
GARO is so cool
I watched
GARO this weekend. It's a dark and mature tokusatsu aimed for adults and young adults (18+).
What I love about this series are the actions and characters. The actions are totally over the top. It's almost like
Ryuhei Kitamura is behind it. The fight choreography is so good that I repeat the fight often just to see what cool moves they're doing. I also like how Kouga (the main character) do a somersault just to jump over walls and other obstacles. Unlike Kamen Rider, most of the actions in GARO are done in human form, not henshin form. So we can see lot of nice martial arts moves, which people in costume will probably have difficulty doing. The actions are also provided in generous amount. I don't know how they do it, they must have a great stunt team.
In the horror department, episode 5 managed to freak me out with the ghostly woman. It was 2 or 3 AM, I was alone, and suddenly the ghost woman just appears, in close up, for a few seconds. Then the Ju-on style head sliding from below, holding head from behind.. Damn..
The characters are interesting. Kouga is a super cool guy with a unique voice. I think he speaks a bit like a kid, unlike some cool other hero's heavy voice (
Tendou Souji, anyone?). Kaoru is cute, funny, and innocent looking. Rei is a cool, strange guy with sweet tooth. His motive is still not known as of episode 8.
Up to episode 8, there is not much storyline yet other than the weekly monsters. But who cares? The actions more than make up for it and the major storyline is definitely there, developing slowly.
To draw comparison with Kamen Rider, although Kamen Rider has interesting and mysterious story, I find that there are a lot of plot holes and the action could have been better. Kabuto is not too bad in action (Kabuto has a cool fighting style), but the plot hole is annoying. I hope this one doesn't have that problem. So far it's still consistent.
The ending song is also nice and lastly, Kouga really looks like
Shinomori Aoshi with the white coat.
Labels: japan, tv
Singapore, Indonesia to sign extradition treaty, defence pact on Friday
SINGAPORE : After a few years of negotiations, Singapore and Indonesia have completed discussions on two bilateral issues - an Extradition Treaty and a Defence Cooperation Agreement.
The foreign and defence ministers from both countries will be signing the agreements in Bali on Friday.
For now, what is confirmed is that Singapore and Indonesia will sign both the Extradition Treaty and a Defence Cooperation Agreement in a ceremony on the island of Bali on Friday.
More details of the agreements reached were not disclosed.
Then the sand ban will be lifted very soon? If it is, then Singapore is hit quite hard with the ban and Indonesia is using the ban (disguised under environmental concerns) to push Singapore into signing. Building the integrated resort with expensive sand or let the rich corruptors go. Looks like the corruptors are of less value compared to what the casino can give.
And for Indonesia, since when environment is number 1 priority compared to money? If sand mining is too destructive for one place, they can still get it from other places. Why stop the export when there is demand? The is surely to pressure Singapore. But I don't think Indonesia will get anyone captured in Singapore. Those guys will just go to other country, but probably not as convenient as Singapore, which is close to home and well developed.
Labels: news
Ran again
I ran again yesterday. 1 km, walk 200 m, then run again 500 m something. Total running time is 9.21.14. Towards the end, it started to rain. I'd like to get soaked in the rain while running, but it was just a light shower.
I stopped because some kid couldn't bike properly. First, it's a pedestrian's track. Second, obviously I was taking the left lane, he should just move to right because there's hardly any space on my left. Well, that forced me to stop. And when you stop while pushing hard, you can't start anymore. It's like losing momentum, the breathing and all are messed up.
Fortunately, no leg pain today. Is it because of the warm up or my daily walking to MRT?
Labels: running
Singapore from my window
Get a tripod, set it next to window, put camera on it, and start taking a few shots.
With help from Canon PhotoStitch, I combined them all. It's so easy that I was surprised.
Just select the images and voila, it's done. No manual adjustment and the result is good, if not great.
Akiba Kanpe, the funny otaku
I stumble upon Akiba Kanpe from
JapanSugoi.com.
The first article I read is about
Waka Inoue. I've seen her before in the mokkori video. It's very funny and the way she laughed made it even funnier. Then I watched the Akiba Kanpe one. It's really really funny and I just wanted more and more of it.
If you watched Densha Otoko, you know him as "Amuro", the long haired weird otaku guy with eye on his hand. What he does in the show is "helping" (distracting) cute idols on interview. For example, he wrote silly answers to the interview question and it's supposed to "help" the idols answer the question. He also does silly thing, like falling from chair at an unexpected moment. But the best part is the hidden image show. Just
watch it to find out what it is.
Next in the comedy line, how about Razor Ramon HG? Who is he? Find out next. Fuuuuuu!
Labels: funny, japan, tv
Let's kill some zombies, mercenary style
Not really zombies, but Ganados, or parasite infected people in
Resident Evil 4.
My PS2 is almost dead. Every time movie is playing, it will hang. I can't play RPG anymore, argh.. So in boredom last weekend, I tried to play
Katamari, can't get pass the opening movie,
Okami, can't even get to title screen. Oh my.. I better fix this soon.
So in the end I played Resident Evil 4, mercenary mode. At that time, I only have 3 characters. I tried to get through the third stage using Ada but failed. Then I used Leon and in the end managed to get 4 stars and get
HUNK as the reward. One bad thing about Leon is the shotgun. Too slow. That's dangerous against single hit kill chainsaw guys, but can still manage against
J.J.. If only it's faster, then he'll rock.
HUNK is great. TMP all the way, man. Which means all the ammo you'll get are TMP ammo. It also means extra slots for grenades and health items. Love it. I played as HUNK for the fourth stage. Damn that Dr. Salvador. He's the only guy that can kill me at fourth stage. So once I managed to kill him with 3 grenades, life was so much easier. And there I got
Wesker as a reward. But Wesker looks weak to me, at least in fourth stage. Couldn't even survive that one.
I haven't tried with HUNK vs the blind Garrador. HUNK doesn't have a powerful one shot weapon. I guess my option is grenades. But I read that Wesker rocks at second stage. His silenced gun will make life so much easier, maybe. I haven't tried it.
As of
Krauser, haven't found his greatness. Maybe he's good against the stage bosses. One hit kill? But I think his Rambo style arrow, although powerful, is too slow. Need to be very accurate with it.
So 2 new characters in one sitting. Man, I thought it would be tough the get these guys. Now my target is 5 stars for all stages. Yeah!
Labels: game
