Little Busters!

I feel old. I guess it's around 2 years left of 青春 or youth that I can spend and then the big 30s. By then, I would probably have created my first eroge, sung a few songs and expanded my fantasy universe to publishing status... but if only I wasn't such a procrastinator.

So what's making me write on this forsaken place? Is it 'cause of my brand spanking-new Dell laptop? Is it because my f-page nowadays has a 3-day gap without any entries? Is it to tell the world that I'm working at the Japanese embassy of my country, making me a paid Japanese government worker? Is it because I'm taking JLPT N1 in December without any real preparation (but I should...)?

Well, I miss you guys that's all.

Devoted to work half my time on weekdays and to my PS3 at weekends (is DOA5 worth buying?), I feel whatever online social life I have is quickly eroding away. Even though it shaped what better part of the last decade or so in my life. They say make the effort, since I can't be reached by IMs much anymore and surprisingly soon to be anonymous on IRC too. But... at least I wanna get in touch with you in writing. LJ doesn't seem to be a good enough place, so here's my FB for goodness sake, I don't think my real name is that much of a scary thing anymore... I have a plurk and tumblr too, the tumblr is a bit less Azu-chan and more into my AzureDark guise though.

So... an update entry is what this is I guess. Did I ever mention making the effort to write more LJ entries in the past? See how lazy I am?

I guess being dead tired does make me think a lot more and try to put stuff into words?

I got shingles last month, straight after hurting my leg and a nasty flu that busted my lymph nodes (which activated the sleeping virus). The shingles got into my eye and it got swollen and was stabbing a fork at me when I sleep. Worst thing, the national pharmacy ran out of shingles cream (but thankfully not the eye ointment so my eye was saved). It was so hard to force myself to sleep on one side because the virus can hop across and into the other eye if I wasn't careful... This was all on my birthday ~_~

Despite being a huge Sonic the Hedgehog fan I didn't care much about his recent escapades (being the old-school 2D platformer lover I am, him turning 3D was a blasphemy to me (yet I did buy a Dreamcast ONLY for Sonic Adventure)), I greeted Sonic 4 news with sheer glee but since it was DLC or something, I kinda let it pass me by. But now there's Sonic Generations, some combination of old and new, and I kinda fancied myself to play it and bought it (also no thanks to my brother who took away Winning Eleven wth him offshore). I seriously enjoyed the thing, what with old and new Sonic having 2D areas to play with. The 2D platformer freak in me is so happy and satisfied. I think I'mma try LBP2 next. LBP is so fun that I finished it myself on a rental period per se.

Also, being the yuri fanboy I am I was so stupid not to have watched YuruYuri when it aired. I marathoned it recently, and it was lovely. Akari is the "main character" but is so bland that it's a recurring joke that she fades away or gets obscured despite being the lead char. I think that's bullshit, because on her own, Akari has that cute charm and silly demeanor, and not to mention her cute voice by some rookie seiyuu (too many these days...) called Shiori Mikami. But what moves the series is NOT the antics of Kyouko but Chitose's MugiVision™, plus her kissing barrage in the last ep that forced Ayano to kiss her love interest Kyouko. (Most people want KyoYui since they're like RitsuMio tho (can never get used to people calling them "Mitsu"...). Sakurako and Himawari (SakuHima) pairing is really nice, they have no rivals and they're like, polar opposites and as we all know, opposites attract. (If Himawari wasn't such a dyke I'd hit her for that hawt rack of hers...)

I'm on the brink of making a big decision. A very sad decision, something I cried a whole night over...

So it's just after 4AM and I can't sleep, despite playing futsal (indoor soccer) last night (finally getting a good performance), but things have been very slow. Oh, and my ex-best friend from high school is getting hitched this weekend. We were so close, wonder what happened. Not that I'll miss the event, cause I'm honestly really happy for him...

Got my copy of Winning Eleven 2012 lately too, it has improved in some vital gameplay areas, but like EVERY new version, some controls have changed, which means re-mastering for about 1 month or two before I kick the AI's butt on the highest difficulty setting (and still suck against human players). Oh, and did I mention WE data editing is for me one of the most painstaking yet enjoyable things in life? Especially when you're a diehard soccer fan who can't stand it when the roster for a club in Finland is not up to date.

Enough about soccer. My anime preferences has all but narrowed into only accepting no-strings-attached ones, like Lucky Star and Nichijou in the last 2 seasons. Nichijou is crack. I'd fit perfectly in their world. Honestly, I don't get taken aback when dumb things and weird happenings just pop out in Nichijou. Or I guess I'm just a messed-up individual. This season though, I dunno which is the nutcase anime. Ben-Too? Maybe. Is that a pun on Ben Hur?

Now that the coast is clear, I shall do the manly thing and officially announce what is the worst-kept secret about Azu-chan for almost 4 years now. Yes, I am the admin of AnimeLyrics.com. However, my Light will never shine again. I want to stress the latter part because I'll never forget about us, the old AL community, you guys will live inside me till I die. But, I've always dreamed of being a song translator and setting the right kind of standards for lyrics translations and romanizations. I can't just abandon it like that. I hope that some of you hardline ex-AL members and now AL-anons would understand.

One final thing to note, I am fancying about doing NaNoWriMo this year, but it's only 20-80. I haven't wrote fiction for so friggin long I doubt if I can manage even a thousand words. Also, sadly you won't get to read it if I ever get it done because it's based on something IRL...

So my anison translation career(?) took a huge step today when I mentioned to Saori Sakura that I was t/ling Eternal Wish (it was unintentional...), and got a reply from her to say she was interested in seeing it. It was part of a failed mini-marathon on V-Day so I didn't finish it, but this morning I was shocked at her reply. She wrote the song, so naturally she'd be curious, but if I do this, it'll be my first 公認, or official recognition, of sorts.

This came just after the elation that Juri Anekouji (newbie seiyuu) followed me back. But this time, I have mixed reactions.

I'm beginning to question myself whether I'm really good at this-- no, whether it's okay for me to do this in the first place. No it's not about legality or any other kind of thing. I'm always a humble t/ler in the first place, I have lots of slumps and writer's blocks, I respect a lot of other translators and accept that they are all better than me in lots of ways. But the thing is that what I percieve may be totally different than most others who know and love the song and what it means, and more importantly, what the original lyricist wanted to tell.

I've trashed out bad song translation habits like LBL and I do extensive research of anything I'm not familiar with beforehand like all good translators do, but like we all know, songs are vague in many sorts of ways and there is no exact answer to what the line means. So I may have picked the wrong one, and that spells imminent doom - people will rely on my t/l blindly.

When I think about it, maybe that's the reason why I don't do anime songs as much, if you look at my list. I'm afraid of being blamed for the wrong delivery. I'll always admire people who can take this on the chin, people like Atashi t/l TV-size OP/EDs and grab the early attention. When the single comes out, just do the whole thing, and say "ignore the earlier t/l".

And now that a more superior translator has come to share my admin job at AL I feel like getting whirled to the backburner.

EDIT I did it!!!

Since I'm only gonna write about 12-15 entries a year (and I'm leaving my layout for ded) I decided that I'm no longer gonna be an LJ paid member starting next year.

It's been so long since I'm here. No I'm not gonna go, but... I still remember those days when otaru_lime would post every single day. What's he up to these days? Finished his JS degree in Australia prematurely and is now preoccupied with DDO.

Yes I still know my *cough* partner inside out but I am not gonna get sucked into the bottomless pit that is MMO gaming. FB games already consume a lot of my time, so the thought is darn scary.

I'm goin' to Mecca for a month (hah, call me Haji Azu when I come back I dare you) so I won't be around... not that it affects LJ since I don't post much anymore.

( Things to do when I come backCollapse )

Oh, and the bitches on P&S w/G need to be less vulgar and more flashy.

You know that feeling when your social network feed is so full of PDA from other couples that you sometimes feel nauseous about them?

So the years pass and now you start to have baby pics all over and...

Congratulations to Spain, new Football World Champions!

Sucks to be schlaften who changed his prediction though...

So what have I been doing all summer? Tweeting the World Cup on Twitter, in Japanese.

/rant mode on
The thing that irks me about the foo- er soccer fandom is that fans are just too easy to insult players and other supporters. I've seen enough madness and stupidity to virtually discontinue writing anything about soccer and going to forums like the BBC's 606. You guys may already know that I hate criticism in any way, either to me or to any other person, but especially with soccer I find no excuse with people attacking clubs and players often without basis. Because I play soccer and know how hard it is. Professional players get paid for doing it because they're better than any other street kid. There's more to it that just running and kicking the ball, a HELL lot more. Heck you even need a sixth sense (to anticipate where the ball is going or where your teammates are and how they move), something that might as well cannot be trained.
/rant off

Then I started watching soccer clips on nico sice last season, of course I found the same kind of "banter" but in an anonymous realm of course everything degrades. But I found that I can take it a lot better than I do with insults in English. I then picked up Japanese footy terms and slang such as QBK, SGGK, Boranchi, StaMem and the like, something I wanna compile altogether and post one day. More importantly, I found that Japanese "overseas soccer" fans are more knowledgeable about their soccer than meets the eye. I didn't expect this from a country that has more affinity to baseball amongst others.

So when the World Cup started, I posted a warning saying I'd be spamming soccer-related tweets but didn't imagine I was gonna double my tweet count over the course of the tournament... But along the way, I got to know more Japanese soccer fans in addition to the nicolive broadcaster I am following who recently got himself a twitter account.

The experience was awesome. And especially when Japan was playing, virtually everyone in my timeline tweeted about it, even the seiyuu that I follow. Japan was eliminated the day before yesterday so everyone was gutted. I said to myself, I'm not gonna have this kind of feeling again till the next WC comes round, and will we be on twitter in 4 years' time? Looking at LJ and other social trends I doubt it...

The quarterfinals start this evening. The race is hotting up, but the downside is that there's only 8 matches left. Me and schlaften crunched the numbers before the tournament and see a Spain v Holland final, the former winning it outright. We'll see how it goes in 9 days' time.

Some of you I've fans have already heard but Aibu has full details in case.

I got the news from my twitter too, and subsequently in another tweet she told everyone that she cannot replicate her high vocals anymore. EDIT: In another tweet looks like she is willing to continue on with low vocals. I'm sure she can adjust to this, being a vocal teacher and all. I just can't imagine I've without Eiko-sensei...

Let's just wish for a speedy recovery no matter what the consequences. We're all rooting for you!