Happy New Year Guys!

Here’s a news from E2046: their annual modelling contest had begun.

The following content might interest modellers; I hope you enjoy!

Sincere Invitation of GK Contest 2012

The latest annual event from E2046 – GK Contest 2012 had started on 01-01-2012. This worldwide contest is surely a challenge for all modellers. Compete with other experts from all over the world! You works may get the chance to be Featured on our Friendly Media. Isn’t this a great opportunity to boost one’s reputation?

On top of that, prizes of GK Contest 2012 had been upgraded. Prizes and Awards amount to More than USD 2,000 is offered to winners. As one of our former champion weltall said, “Let’s bring up the atmosphere!” Show your support and join this fiesta now!

Schedule of GK Contest 2012

01 Jan 2012: Registration & Submission Begin
30 Apr 2012: Registration & Submission End
07 May 2012: Entries Posting Up
14 May 2012: Public Polling Begins
14 Jun 2012: End of Public Polling
02 Jul 2012: Announcement of Results

Note: All deadlines are subjected to 1200 noon Hong Kong Time (GMT+0800). Late registration / submission will NOT be accepted.

Prizes & Rewards

Prizes for Winners

Champion (One each from Figure, Robot & Diorama)
US$300.00 E2046 Cash Coupon OR US$200.00 Paypal / Alipay Cash
Trophy with Winner’s name Imprinted

1st Runner Up (One each from Figure, Robot & Diorama)
US$200.00 E2046 Cash Coupon OR US$130.00 Paypal / Alipay Cash
Printed Certificate with Member’s name

2nd Runner Up (One each from Figure, Robot & Diorama)
US$100.00 E2046 Cash Coupon OR US$70.00 Paypal / Alipay Cash
Printed Certificate with Member’s name

Submission Reward
If contestant using a kit purchased from E2046 could redeem a 10% cash coupon of product price upon successful submission.

Enquiries

Feel free to visit GK Contest 2012 dedicated page (www.e2046.com/contest/2012/) or contact us via Message System if you have any enquiry regarding the Contest.
It is a great chance to show your amazing skills of building kits. Join the GK Contest today!

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Summary

It’s been a while since I’ve written single episode reviews of a series–mainly Bleach. It’s a little difficult to talk about every single episode of an Anime airing every week that spans over 200 episodes, but I find it easier to blog about a long running series once it reaches a certain point of the series, such as a conclusion of a story arc. For Bleach, on the other hand, is different. This one episode of Bleach was awesome in a certain way (for me, at least) that I just had to blog about it.

Review

The newest episodes of Bleach finally goes back in time to 101 years ago when different Captains where in charge of the squads. There were no Hitsugaya, no Gin, no Unohana, or no Komamura. Instead, the Vizards from the start of the Arrancar arc were Captains and Vice-Captains, including the leader of Squad Five, Shinji Hirako. Other than the Vizards being Captains, we at last get to see Kisuke’s backstory; a former captain of Squad 12.

In this episode, Kisuke asks Vice-Captain Hyori (Shinji’s little friend) to escort him to the Second Squad’s detention grounds, known as “The Maggot’s Nest”. The nest is where Shinigami are sent when they are deemed too dangerous to be hanging around [the captains]. On the way there, Kisuke explains the principals of the Second Squad, and how the Secret Remote Squad are exclusive only to the noble families of Soul Society. Yoruichi Shiouin, Captain of Squad Two, is in charge of not only the squad, but the SRQ as well, being a member of one of the Four Nobles and a captain.

Kisuke and Hyori arrives at The Maggot’s Nest where they are greeted by the detainees when Hyori’s former classmate takes her hostage. Not allowed to use weapons, Kisuke takes the prisoners on one-by-one using the traditional hand-to-hand method. Once the fight was broken up, Kisuke and Hyori head over to another part of The Nest to meet a prisoner who may become Captain someday: Mayuri Kurotsuchi. Kisuke offers Mayuri a position in his upcoming special division for Squad 12: The Department of Research and Development.

Meanwhile, we are treated to a special (well, not that special) scene involving another member of one of the Four Nobles of Soul Society. A young Byakuya Kuchiki is praised by his Grandfather, who was at the time, Captain of Squad Six, for training tirelessly to become a Shinigami (or Captain being next in line to Grandfather). The nameless Grandfather Kuchiki (or “Old Man Kuchiki” as I like to call him) makes note of Yoruichi’s (who is (as per the scenes during the Soul Society arc) Byakuya’s “rival”) sudden arrival. A pissed off Byakuya declares that he will surpass Yoruichi’s Shunpo [once he becomes the head of the Kuchiki clan]…

Finally, we see a scene involving a younger Ukitake and Ganju’s then-living brother, Kaien Shiba, talking over a cup of tea about a new recruit who happens to be the same age as Byakuya. Hint: It’s not Hitsugaya–but Hitsugaya wanted him dead for hurting Hinamori during the Soul Society arc. This new recruit becomes friends with Vice-Captain of Squad Five, Sousuke Aizen.

Thoughts

Just how was this episode awesome, exactly? Well, it brings together the “analysis” I did last year for possible storylines for the then-upcoming third Bleach movie, “I Call Your Name”. I was hoping the story focused on Byakuya (since he didn’t have a lot of attention despite the fight with Ichigo), but it was Joana who made the suggestion of a movie centering around Kisuke since he needed further explanation. ^_^

Of course… she probably read a chapter of the manga that the episode was based on featuring a few “theories” that were posted… which could happened conveniently around the same time I wrote the post. Being a reader of the translated Shonen Jump graphic novels and a Bleach addict who might suffer from withdrawal if is caught up to the manga in addition to the anime, I could not have known that it happened already–but it helps a little when you stumble across spoilers…

Other than that, the episodes focusing on the past before Aizen defected to Hueco Mundo have been entertaining despite being actionless…especially after those two episodes involving Lurichiyo (ugh).

Rating:

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Preview

Linda, Linda, Linda is a 2005 movie about 3 girls who start a High School rock band, but they need a vocalist. With less than a week remaining until the school’s Music Festival, they seek out a their 4th member: a transfer student from South Korea (Bae Doo-na from Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance) who has a bit of trouble speaking Japanese.

The movie follows the trails and tribulation of an indie rock band. It could be compared to another movie based on an indie band--made an America, but Japanese movies of this caliber (Linda, Linda, Linda won rave reviews from many film festivals around the world) can’t (and shouldn’t) be copied anywhere else.

The soundtrack comes along with the help of former Smashing Pumpkins Guitarist, James Iha, and the legendary Ramones. And that’s not all: the R1 DVD version of the movie comes with commentary from American Otaku enthusiast, Patrick Marcias; (another plus personally, being a Marcias fan).

Trailer

*Purchase “Linda, Linda, Linda” DVD: Region 1 | Region 2

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Blue Dragon Plus for the Nintendo DS is an upcoming (for a North American release in late February) sequel to the popular Console RPG for the Xbox 360 supervised by the Father of the Final Fantasy franchise, Hironobu Sakaguchi, the musical prodigy of Final Fantasy, Nobuo Uematsu, and also based off the anime of the same name, with artwork by Dragonball Z creator, Akira Toriyama.

The Nintendo DS installment of Blue Dragon features a single player campaign spanning over 30 hours of gameplay. Up to 16 Humans and Mecha can be controlled to fight against the enemy. Like with all Nintendo DS games, the Dual screen can be used to control the game and to take advantage of its Real-Time Battle system and Dragon Fights. The FMV graphics are rendered in full 3D and shows up to an hour’s worth of cutscenes. That’s pretty amazing for a DS game. ^_^

Of course, being an Portable RPG, it does include features like in your traditional RPG, even Tactical games such as Final Fantasy Tactics (and Advance). This game is worth looking into, especially if you’ve played the first Blue Dragon on the Xbox 360. For newer Blue Dragon fans without an Xbox 360, the game may be played without prior knowledge [of the original game].

Trailer

Special thanks goes out to RocketXL Marketing!

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I purchased these from an Asian grocery store in Little Rock, Arkansas in February 2007 during a small family trip. I ate some of the candy, but the results wasn’t all that great. Either it was my sense of taste after eating a whole box of Butter Flavored Pretz in one day, or I forgot to take the wax paper off the gummy. It had the smell of a bag of gummy candy (if you were hoping it smelled like dog droppings, you’re out of luck, Shinniacs! ), but tasted awful! Perhaps I had a bad pack of gummies.

A year and a half later, I still have the packages–with the candy still in it! It still has that fruit smell to it, but I wouldn’t eat it now, of course. I took some pictures of them for everyone to see. If you’ve eaten these before, how did they taste? Maybe I’ll give them a second chance if I see them at my local Asian grocer.

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Here’s a trailer for the upcoming Afro Samurai video game that will be released for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was announced back in 2005, and was supposed to be released this fall, but was pushed back to late January ’09. In the game, you get to play as the main character (voiced by actor Samuel L. Jackson) who is on the hunt to find the murderer who killed his father.

The soundtrack is being supervised by RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. The graphics are cell shaded and character interaction involving enemies brings out the realism of the anime, just like another upcoming game based on an anime series.

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Summary: There’s no Bleach this week, so time for a recap of last week’s episode. This is probably the shortest review of a Bleach episode I’ve done. This episode finally makes a huge progression in the Amagai Shusuke arc–which may finally come to an end in a couple of weeks… Hopefully.

Warning: This post contains spoilers! Read at your own risk!

We see Ichigo, who just saved Captain Shigekuni Genryuusai Yamamoto from getting burned by his own attack, engaging in a fight between Shusuke Amagai–who turns out to the root of the problem in the midst of the Kasumi-ooji/Bakkoutou debacle.

After exchanging sword attacks from each other, the fight comes to a temporary halt as Shusuke explains his reasoning on why he became a Captain…in order to get revenge for his father’s death. The cause of his father’s death was by the hands of Captain Yamamoto. Basically, it’s just a good old fashioned Seireitei “political” scandal that was actually for good for the sake of Soul Society…

My analysis of Bleach – Episode 188: The episode was kind of boring, but at least we get to see a Bankai Ichigo in action! But really…let’s see Captain Amagai put to rest–and move on to the second half of the Arrancar arc, please?! I hope Byakuya, Hitsugaya, Ukitake, and the others make Swiss cheese out of him soon. Oh yeah, Bleach moves to Tuesday (Japan time) starting next month!

Rating:

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The second Death Note movie, The Last Name, will be released in theaters October 15th and 16th. The second movie is the sequel to the first movie, and of course, is based on the events in the anime and manga. The story follows Light, a high school student, who stumbles upon a notebook with the ability to eliminate individuals by writing their name in the notebook.

I am giving away two free tickets to a lucky fan and their friend for Death Note: The Last Name, courtesy of Viz Pictures! Note that the movie will be in select theaters. The theater list can be viewed on the Fathom Events website. If your theater is on the list, then don’t miss out this opportunity!

To win the tickets, all you need to do is answer a minimum of 2 out of 3 (or all for a better chance of winning) questions pertaining to the series:

1. On what date did Light find the Death Note?
2. What was the letter, written in code by Light, saying to L?
3. What is L’s real name?

Head on over to the contact page if you know the answers, along with the date you wish to see the movie (October 15th or 16th), your name and address. The winner will be drawn at random. The giveaway ends on September 28th, 2008. Good luck!

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Stix: Pringles' Answer to Pretz?

If you’ve been to a supermarket’s snacks section, you may find a new product from Pringles called “Stix”. It’s just pretzel sticks in a variety of flavors such as Honey (shown above), Vanilla, Pizza, and a few others. However, the one in question tastes a lot like Butter flavored Pretz. What’s Pretz? It’s a popular stick snack created by Glico who made the beloved Pocky snack.

Is this heart decoration on the top a coincidence as well?

Pretz is just as addicting as Pocky, but with no coating. I became addicted to Pretz after eating a whole box on during a trip in Little Rock, Arkansas, in February 2007. After returning home to Chattanooga, I was able to locate an Asian grocer that sold Pretz at all, sans the Butter flavor that I fell in love with.

Pretz is also available in similar flavors like Stix, including the Butter flavor that the Honey flavor may be copying. Is this a silent wish that came true for Japanese snack fans, or just a huge coincidence?

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Get the first episode of Naruto - Uncut for Free. Believe it!

I just purchased the latest issue of Shonen Jump’s Naruto Fall 2008 Posterzine, and with it includes a iTunes download code for a free episode of the first episode of Naruto–Uncut! I’m not in a great Naruto (anime) mood at the moment; although I do plan to buy the DVDs in the future as I find paying for downloads of an on-going series quite expensive, and with no extras at that. Plus, I’ve seen the first episode too many times to use the code myself, so I’m giving the code away to a lucky fan!

To win the code, you must answer to the two quizzes below. If more than one commenter gets the questions correct, the winner will be selected at random. The giveaway is open until September 5th. One more thing…since this blog uses the Ajax Edit Comments plugin, you could edit your comment, but it will not be allowed for this post: edit your comment to a different answer from the one you posted the first time, and you will automatically lose.

1. How many lands are there and what are the names of the villages?
2. Approximately, how many Shinobi passed the written exam to advance to the Forest of Death?

However, there are some limitations: the code only works on the U.S. iTunes store, and you must have an account on the U.S. iTunes (with a billing address in the US) store to redeem the code. This is code is only for the first episode of Naruto and nothing else. Good luck!

Update: The giveaway is over. Congratulations to Tyler for answering both of the questions! An email will be sent to him as soon as possible. Thanks for those who stopped by, and look for similar giveaways in the future.

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