Let's brew!

So instead of studying for my 6 hour exam like I should have been, I ended up watching the Korean drama 개인의 쥐향 [Personal Taste]. I found it pretty amusing, although at first there were a few too many characters whose eyes I wanted to claw out just because they were hella annoying. Somehow the writers managed to redeem pretty much ALL the characters, save for one (in my opinion), but the one character I was fairly conflicted about throughout the whole series was Han Chang Ryul. That's pretty much all I have to say about the drama, since I watched it a couple of weeks ago and my memory is crap, lol.
Oh. But I never knew how FINE Lee Min Ho is. o_O

I also watched the anime もやしもん [Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture] which has been around for a while (2007) but I never got around to watching until now. Basically, it's about a boy named Sawaki who can see microbes with the naked eye; not in a oh-look-spores-like-under-a-microscope kind of way but rather in a chibified and ridiculously cute kind of way. And they can talk. Yes.
Needless to say, I fell in love with the so-called main character of the featured microorganisms: Aspergillus oryzae. Since this is centred around agricultural microbiology, the microbes that appear are usually fungi, sometimes bacteria, and very rarely viruses. The only viruses I recall explicitly being pointed out were rhinovirus and influenza. But then of course, we could get into a whole debate about whether or not viruses are actually "alive", right?

What really motivated me to finally watch the Moyashimon anime was the fact that I happened to see that they recently (this year, in fact) made a drama adaptation! After finishing the anime I started the drama but so far I've only watched the first two episodes. It's interesting, and obviously a bit different from the anime (e.g. Sawaki's best friend Kei takes a leave of absence right from the get-go; this made me very sad). The microbes also seem to be much more vocal and in general noisier than their anime counterparts. I have yet to decide how I feel about the various character portrayals, so we'll see how it goes after a few more episodes.

Listening to right now: SID - 「すぐ傍で」

Oh, the irony

I mentioned in a previous post that I was thinking about going to one of the US Dir en grey/Apocalyptica shows this year. Happy to say, I made plans and did indeed make it to the venue. Right after Dir en grey finished playing.

T_T

As it turns out, my master planning skills did not take into account a number of various scenarios that ended up happening, thus resulting in my absolute disappointment at not being able to see Dir en grey perform. To be fair, everything that happened was completely unavoidable so that actually does make it a little better.

And I did get to see Apocalyptica perform so it wasn't a total waste. Not to mention that they were totally badass and rocked out on those cellos so hard. I also was not expecting such hot eyecandy to be flaunted before me. I'm quite happy that I got the opportunity to see them that close up but it's a little sad that there weren't more people at that particular venue because they definitely deserve more love.

The one thing that's really kind of depressing, despite the fact that I'm really not that big a Diru fan, is that the venue was pretty small and there weren't that many people (at least not for Apocalyptica's set). So I could see the band ridiculously clearly and when I think that I was this close to seeing Diru that close up... yeah, I kind of die a little inside.

All in all, it was a worthwhile experience and it was awesome watching Apocalyptica's performance. I'm sure Diru will come back, and when they do I hope that I'll have the opportunity and the funds to actually see them this time, preferably in a venue as small as this one.

Listening to right now: the GazettE - Without a Trace

The stigma against visual kei

It's always interesting to see people's reactions to visual kei. I happened to show a Shoxx magazine to a couple of my friends and their reactions were something like a mix of shock, disgust, denial, and dislike. What was even more interesting though, was my own reaction to their reactions. Mild annoyance and discomfort aside, I was surprised. I guess I've been exposed to visual kei so much for so long that effeminate men wearing make-up and girly clothes just seem so normal, lol. What also helps though is knowing that it's a style that is (technically speaking) specific to a particular genre of music. I've begun to realise that people who are not acquainted with visual kei, and who only see pictures in magazines, automatically assume that this is a lifestyle that these men adopt. That they run around everyday in their crazy make-up, flamboyant outfits, and highly styled hair. Which in turn seems bizarre to me because who would really do that?

It also seems to be hard for people to understand why anyone straight would 1) choose a profession where they would have to dress like that and 2) actually like the artists who do this. Apparently because a man chooses to dress like a woman (though in reality it's usually androgynous) it must mean that he's gay. Or wants to be gay. Or is in denial about being gay.
Of course, cross-dressing in Japan dates waaaaay further back than visual kei. Kabuki, anyone? Not only that but sexuality and orientation markers are viewed/interpreted differently in Japan than it is in, e.g. some Western cultures. And just because a man engages in so-called homosexual behaviour does not automatically make him gay anyway. Gay-for-pay, anyone?

I'm going off-topic here, lol.

The whole point of this post was not to go into the finer details of sexuality and culture or to lament the fact that all my friends now think I'm a freak for liking cross-dressing/androgynous Japanese men but just to say that it's interesting how desensitised I've become to the whole notion of visual kei. It's a completely normal style in my eyes, and I am no longer shocked or disgusted by VK bands (with a few exceptions). I've always found the androgyny in VK to be fascinating and attractive, not only because of the omg-guys-dressed-as-girls-woohoo-feed-the-fangirl factor but also because of the make-up, the outfits, and just the style in general. Not to mention that photography plays a large part; I'm sure if I saw J-rockers prancing down the street in all their VK glory I wouldn't find it quite as attractive as a well-taken picture. Maybe, if they were really, really far away?

Listening to right now: DJ Earworm - United State of Pop 2009 (Blame It on the Pop)

Get well soon, Ruki!

It seems that Ruki, the vocalist of the GazettE, has a viral throat infection of some sort and so he was unable to finish the encore at their live on Saturday. They've also cancelled the next 5 concerts in their tour in order for Ruki to recover, etc.

I love the way that Kai (the drummer) put it in his blog entry about this; that the others' instruments can be replaced indefinitely but Ruki's instrument, his voice, is irreplaceable.

It's unfortunate that they had to cancel so many concerts (being in the midst of planning my own trip for a concert I can understand the frustration of fans) but I hope that Ruki gets better soon and shows an even cooler and stronger image than before! ^^
ルキさん、がんばってください！

Take the love train~

I don't usually listen to J-pop boy bands (e.g. those of the Johnny's Entertainment variety) but for some reason I am ridiculously and hopelessly addicted to KAT-TUN's song "Yorokobi no Uta". I had bookmarked the PV on Youtube a while back but I never went to back to it until this weekend. And it is literally almost the only song I have been listening to all weekend.

It's nothing spectacular, and imo they didn't need six guys to sing it since they all kinda sound the same anyway except for maybe the rapper cuz you know... he raps, but omg it's sooo catchy. And totally fun to sing along to as well.

I've never found the KAT-TUN guys to be that good-looking (except Kamenashi Kazuya because I've seen him in dramas) but the more I watch them, not only in this video but others as well, the more I find them to be quite charming and cute in their own somewhat dorky ways. In addition to their personalities, it probably has a lot to do with their clothes and hairstyles, too. (Remember my Superman analogy?)

It's really too bad that I don't like most of their other songs that I've heard so far. -_-;

Listening to right now: KAT-TUN - Yorokobi no Uta

Edit: Perhaps "take da luv train" is a more accurate title, lol.

I wanna be a rockstar!

This video is made of so much win. How could I not post about it?

Kid's putting his heart and soul into it too, like totally rocking out, lol. I sense a future Youtube attention whore in the making. He's so cute though!

There are apparently other videos of him but I'm too lazy to check them out now... if they're anything like this one, then there's bound to be cuteness overload and endless lol-ing.

It's like an addiction

I was thinking about starting another blog, specifically for more personal entries (since this one is more or less just for fangirling and general interests, and the other is solely for creative works). I mean, it's not like hordes of people even read any of my blogs so what would really be the point of starting another one? It's quite simple really.

Hello, my name is Kryz and I am an attention whore addicted to blogging.

Also, I've found that my blogs are compartmentalised much like the rest of my life. A blog for fangirling, a blog for poems, a blog for personal entries. It truly reflects my need for organisation in my life.

Though, to be honest, my penchant for multiple blogs is a little more complex. Initially it starts off with my need for anonymity. Sometimes the attention whore part of me takes over and I make the blog public (this was the case with words laced with a little hate; shameless plug, hoho). In other cases, the blog is public but remains separate and completely secret, simply because it's easier to become someone else when no one you know is watching, and when you don't have loads of baggage weighing you down. And finally, it's because some people don't give a shit about my fangirling and would be more likely to read my entries if they maybe contained some nekkid pics had something to do with my life (this is debatable).

Multiple blogs also allow me to write in multiple styles. I can slip into different personas depending on the blog; for example, I write much more colloquially here and use more emoticons and the like to express myself, whereas on words laced with a little hate I adopt a more mellow, reserved style simply because of the nature of the blog.

I've been wondering if I should just link everything together though, except that I would lose the anonymity of that secret blog's name. Not only that, but then everyone would know the dirty, dirty things I do in secret, lol.

Listening to right now: FTIsland - 첫눈에 알아

P.S. This post has been sitting as a draft since Saturday, lol. I ended up not even editing it to make more sense.