Drift 7 R

Drift 7 R / ドリフト7-R-

I think this trailer says it all really, if i had seen this before I might not have bothered to watch the whole thing! I did, however, and to be honest felt like a bit of a waste of 73minutes.
Watch it if you enjoy:

• Long, drawn out racing scenes done in a very shakey camera style
• Multiple reused footage of shifting the gear stick back and forth, and pedal footwork, each clip shown about every 30seconds in each race
• Lots of zooming in on the characters eyes, then a quick jump to the the car, then the above mentioned footage then back to characters eyes
• The same overtaking manouver shown from 3 slightly different angles one after another with added "vrooom!" sound effects

Don't watch if you are looking for:

• Deep & meaningful storyline
• Good camera work and SFX
• Exciting car chases

I would say the only good parts about the film are the slight twist in the end;it really does not end how you'd expect, and it's quite a humerous scenario, and that the main protagonist, played by 杉浦太陽 is pretty cute;in my opinion anyway.

More information about the film in English and in Japanese.

N.B it seems to be known as Drift GTR in some places and DRIFT7R in others, in the opening credits of the movie the splash calls it DRIFT7R so I presumed this to be it's official name.

While looking for info on this film I came across another dorifuto movie that I have seen. I saw it while on the plane either to or from Japan, and don't remember much other than it was pretty silly and fun, click on the image for more info!

Getting to Japan on the cheap.

My circumstances have changed recently, and I may be able to justify a quick break at the other side of the world to cheer myself up :D

Looking at it from a financial point of view, I have found flights for about the £450 mark, which is very reasonable, but with the current bank-crisis-thingy I really should try understand more, it seems the exchange rate would equate even the cheapest hostel to be in the region of £20 a night!
I have a few friends over in Japan at the moment, but none I feel close enough to to ask to put me up for a night or two :(

I really want to be brave enough to go and stay bymyself in a backpackers hostel, but feel a bit concerened for my safety,and also wonder if I willreally enjoy being all alone, everyday on a shoe string budget, in the event I don't make a friend at the hostel.
I feel I shall have to overcome these reservations before searching for a JET type job after graduation anyway, and I know this would help my confidence levels a lot.

Hopefully I will find the get-up-and-go to book something so I can't back out.
I would invite a friend to come with me, I can think of one work collegue who would jump at the chance, but If I am going, it is alone this time, that I am sure of, and part of the whole growing up and finding myself quest I need to go on!

Not done so many Japan-reated-things recently, rather I have been enjoying the more "British" pursuit of £1-a-bottle nights at my local bars with a good friend!

I have been trying to make some anime characters in the soul calibur IV creation screen, but they are not good enough for posting here yet, maybe in the next week or so...

I also downloaded Bimbo Danshi as something to watch now I have concluded all of Hana Yori Dango, live action doramas and film.



Oguri Shun is the main character shown here, pretty isn't he? ^^

-Update-
I got a new Job (kinda!) yay ^_^, but also boo as no Japan this summer :(

惚れる - To fall in love

「バカでわがままで自己中な道明寺に惚れてるよ」
Is (or very similar to) an important line in the 花より男子 series/move I am watching at the moment, I already understood the バカ　and わがまま parts but was curious how the rest worked so did a bit of googling and ended up teaching myself a new verb I like very much

惚れる「ほれる」　－　To Fall in Love

I also learnt that in very slang/casual speak the て＋いる　form can be contracted to just てる

Making the above phrase mean, technically

stupid, selfish, self-centered Domyouji[characters name] I am falling in love [with you] !

But a better sounding translation used in the subs is

You're stupid, you're selfish and your self-centered, but i've fallen in love with you, Domyouji.

Not sure which is more correct when it comes to the I am falling in love/I have fallen in love as to me the て＋いる　suggests more of a "ing" state, howeve I have come across this contridiction before and think it comes down to being that the form is more about a continuous state of the verb than how "ing" is used in English. So that would make it more along the lines of
I am ongoing the feeling of having fallen in love with you.
Obviously that doesn't sound so great in English at all!

I must further research in order to understand て＋いる better in different contexts.

The other vocab learnt here is

自己中「じこちゅう」　－　Self-centered (slang again)

Less likely to remember this I feel, but the kanji make it easy to take a guess at it's meaning I feel

as they literally read

Self - I/You/Oneself - Inside

swap it around to get self-inside or self centerted :)

Although this is retero understanding, as in i looked it up before seeing the Kanji and taking a guess, so it is always easy to see the meaning after you already know!

Good learning today, that is one reason, no matter how many people say things against it, I continue to learn the most Japanese from things in anime/movies/dorama that make me go "oh i understood like 60% of that I wondered how the rest fits to the subs" and go away and do some study. Drilling Kanji and doing online tests and other traditional study methods seem very dry and little sticks. I know it is a very "Otaku" way to learn, and would never dream of suggesting watching anime to be a way to learn Japanese from scratch, or anything formal you would say to anyone in Japan, but for me it is a good little vocabulary builder, which I doubt can ever be a bad thing. :)

Japan Trip, Moyashimon, Hana Yori Dango and more

OK so my plan to post some blogs while in Japan, didn't work at all.

Instead I shall give a brief summary of how my trip went through a series of posts, hopefully looking through my photos will remind me.

がんばります！

First though a little update of the Japan related goodness I have been up to (quite) recently.

I have started going to my beloved animesoc again, and it answered something I had been wondering while in Japan

これは何だよか

These curious creatures were in plushy and keychain form all over the shops and arcades, I had guessed the label もやしもん was some contraction of 虫「むし」 the generic word for bug, and they also looked like some kind of video game character. They also reminded me of a product I had seen in cyberdog which with a bit of google foo i found to be known as GIANTmicrobes
Totally Kawaii representations of real life germs, in plushy form!!

However it turns out moyashimon is infact an anime series, based on a manga. At the anime soc meeting it was described as an anime about a boy who works on a farm and can see and talk to the bacterium and microbes around. It sounded really boring so I didn't bother voting for it, but when it appeared on screen with the cutest opening ever....

I instantly recognised the little guys, and it settled the wondering in my head. XD
The episode itself was nothing special to me though, think i watched the first 3 or so later at home then lost interest.

Here is a photo of one I took myself.
Yes it is in a Santa Hat, it was November!
Japan makes perfect sence ¬_¬

Also over the last couple months anime soc meetings I got to see the first episode of KeroroGunsou, everyones favourite commander frog from outerspace, for about the 10th time, and surprisingly it STILL made me laugh. I don't have the dedication to sit and watch my way through what is now (according to good old wiki) hundreds of episodes of the stuff though.
Keroro = cool nevertheless. I think my plushy of him would agree. ね？


The other anime I remember I liked enough to mention is dot Hack, a series I had heard of. and was vaguely curious about for years, didn't disappoint and I plan to slowly watch more episodes than the first 3 or so seen with animesoc.


Aside from animesoc, I also went to the give-it-a-go start up session of a new society, dorama-soku, or known to everyone else as fransoc after the girl who started it. It is very similar to anime soc, sit in a room and watch fansubs, only this time of Japanese TV drama series rather than anime.

I got to see the original super sentai or as known in the west "Power Rangers" episode in original Japanese without the American actors cut into it, it was really amusing, as it seemed to have zero budget and make even less sense! There was also a random episode from the Akihabara@Deep series, of which i have seen some kind of OVA/Movie thing in the past and love for all the sights & sounds of 秋葉原 as well as the general idea, which seems to be a group of otaku who fight gangs, they all have their own quirks and were somehow all united by a mysterious online persona ... bizarre but totally 楽しい

The best thing to come out of the meeting though, （aside from the free and 美味しかったケーキ）was my introduction to the series 花より男子 , I was hooked from the first 30seconds, and have managed to watch nearly all of the two series in just 3days! That is what happens when my job gives me so much time off work!
I cannot decide which of the male protagonists is my favourite as it seems to change every couple of episodes, the most gorgeous award goes to Oguri Shun as Hanazawa Rui at the moment, and even though i know it is just light fluffy romantic nonsense, with some really bad acting at places, the whole series warms my heart and I really really want a happy ending! :)
It reminds me a lot of Ouran High School Host Club, but with real life actors, so cannot possibly be a bad thing ^_^




My major anime news is the end of　ガンダム00 s2, and the shock announcement of a movie, but I think gundam related stuff deserves a post of it's own sometime.

I think that is about it!