Minggu, 02 September 2012

It's All About ANIME!

Ah, after 3 months of somewhat summer vacation, it's finally that time again to start the new year of campus. But that's not worth to talk about since nothing out of the ordinary had happened yet.
What I'm trying to elaborate in this post is the fact that I spent 3 months of my vacation indulging my self in the ever famous Japanese animes and mangas. 
 
Gachapon (ガチャポン)! I bought lots of these cute things

Yes, basically I've filled my supposed to be productive vacation with lots of anime watching and manga reading. So far I've finished watching Ao no Exorcist, Another, Persona 4, and started watching Bakuman and Beelzebub. As for the manga I've re-read Katekyo Hitman Reborn, D.Gray-man, Yakitate Japan!, Bleach, and also I started to read Ao no Exorcist, Beelzebub, and Bakuman. So much shounen battle stories! 
And after reading Bakuman I came to a further understanding on what mangakas do actually. A manga about a mangaka's life is pretty interesting, really. It somewhat lit a fire on my old dream to be a mangaka. But considering my tendencies to procrastinate, that basically put the fire out. 
From the manga Bakuman, I've come to have a huge fondness towards Niizuma Eiji, the eccentric-genius-young mangaka who is also the rival of the protagonist, Ashirogi Muto (pen name for Mashiro Moritaka and Takagi Akito). His multiple personalities intrigue me. Basically his a nutshell that you can fall in love with. The fact that the seiyuu (voice actor) for Niizuma Eiji in the anime adaptation of Bakuman is none other than Nobuhiko Okamoto (who is also the seiyuu of my favorite Ao no Exorcist character, Okumura Rin) makes me ten times loving Eiji!


Look at his face, it's just priceless! スピーーン!

I highly recommend this manga to you! I love it to the extent of buying the Jump Comic volume ones although I don't even know a lot Japanese. I can learn my Japanese through the manga also since they have the hiraganas written beside the all the wiggly kanjis. 
And on top of that, my love for Niizuma Eiji has brought me to purchase the Nendoroid figure of him! Now I have my own mini Eiji in my room. 


It's Detective Trap and Azuki-chan!

Oh I can ramble on about anime and stuff, but I know it'll never end. So if you wanna talk about anime or manga, or if you have interest in Japanese culture in general, let's have a chat sometimes. 

The crème de la crème of my sudden anime addiction over the summer is the Anime Festival Asia Indonesia 2012 (AFA ID 2012) that I went to with my sister yesterday. We anticipated this event ever since the commercial airs in Animax and couldn't even believe that we were actually going. I mean, it's not the kind of environment that we usually surround ourselves with. I do like Japanese culture, but I never went to things like these before. So it was a really great experience when we got there. The queue for entry tickets was an ass though. We had to queue for an hour or so around 9.30 am. 
After we got in, it was already crowded (for my standards). We visited the Good Smile Company booth and saw lots of Vocaloid Nendoroids! I don't know why but I only saw mainly Vocaloid characters though. Oh, and Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica characters!





There was also lots of other booths selling anime merchandises such as from One Peace, Kamen Rider, Bleach, and more. But what caught my eyes was this astonishing display of Persona 4's Inzanagi! Oh I'm in love.



There was lot's of people I couldn't even comprehend. My brain usually doesn't work in crowds since I can't focus. So I didn't take a lot of pictures. I ended up only buying few things too, like more gachapons. However, my goal on coming to this event is not only to experience the world of figures, cosplay, and anime, but also... drum roll..., the Atelier Royale Butler Café! Yes, you didn't read it wrong, it definitely said butler café. This, of all the things that I can't imagine having in the event, is the sole purpose I came. To experience being served by charming butlers. Unfortunatly, that goal had to be shared by numerous amount of girls in there (there were also Moe Moe Kyun Café for the boys to enjoy). 



Yet another queue was in order. The longest queue that I've experienced so far to be exact. It was about 2 hours or so. My legs were basically dead after one and a half hour. But the pain had been washed away after we got in and sat down on our table. We were greeted by the head butler, Haru, and accompanied by our own butler, Ren. He was a nice fellow, a hint of shyness was portrayed in his demeanor. None the less, he was handsome. We had a talk got to know him a bit. But maybe he wanted us to talked more since he was a bit out of his head when we asked him something. I guess having to serve lots of squealing girls for hours and hours is a tad tiresome. When we asked him that, he smiled and said he was alright with it. I salute you butlers (and maids on the other side). 
The situation looked pretty hectic, butlers were coming and going. Despite all that they still prioritize keeping a good conversation with their costumers. Another butler came up to us and start up a chat. His name was Takuya. Takuya was a bit more talkative than Ren and cheeky. We talked about animes and stuff also. He somewhat resembles MBLAQ's Joon (from the picture above, he's the first person from the left). And to top it off, Takuya has a surprisingly familiar background. I'm just gonna keep that to myself. Teehee.

Basically it was a great experience, aside from the cost and the effort, it was really fun. We also had our pictures taken with the butlers. My sister took hers with Ren and I took mine with Takuya since they were the butlers that served us. It was like a dream, a too good to be true kinda thing. 


These are all the things I got from the AFA and also some that I bought from SCOOP/スクープ. I got myself a couple of gachapons and the GazettE's DIVISION album. After AFA we went to the nearest mall to move away from the hustle and bustle we experienced since morning. We went there using a bajaj. Another epic experience to add on that day. At the mall we visited SCOOP, a really cute stationary and trinket store. I seriously love the store, but was too tired to take a picture of it. Maybe another day I'll have to take a picture of it. I bought lots and lots of postcards, especially the polaroid ones. The cards have pictures of Japan environments. It's super nice! And that cute fan is also from SCOOP.

Ah, this is another version of impulsive week. This is more like an impulsive and also sudden Japanese themed vacation. But even though my supposedly productive vacation became like this... I don't regret anything.

あなたは一度だけ生きる。

Sabtu, 26 Mei 2012

Hello Diana!







Last month, I bought a Diana F+ when I was attending Trademark. I just had the film developed and these are some of the pictures that came out. A little glimpse of my Bandung life.
I got the Diana F+ The Tokyo Rising. Pretty much I fell in love with this user friendly analogue camera. The whole process of analogue photography intrigues me, but I am far less talented to use the complicated SLR ones like my friends do. So I'm settling my self with this lovely camera of mine. A start towards my new photography adventure! <3

Selasa, 22 Mei 2012

A Message

This was a picture taken today by me in the midst of a hectic day. Today was a beautiful day indeed and it felt like the sky was smiling at us with the sun accompanies it. The quote is from the movie 恋空 (Koizora) which translates to "Were you happy? I was really happy" 

So, are you happy?

Minggu, 18 Maret 2012

Adventure Day #1: Lost In Braga











Lost in Braga. At first it was hunting for Pororo, then there's no Pororo, disappointed, went for lunch in Braga, SUGA RUSH!, ate spaghetti and got full, strolling along the Braga road, looking through old shops, stroll some more, got lost, saw a suspicious Abdurachman Bin 'Auf Trade Center, met Sigit, went back to Braga, found the right track, went to campus, went to Selasar Soenaryo for AD Pirous' artist talk, ate at Lisung, went to Cungek's place, went to Borma Setiabudi, and went home.
High mobility day. Need to do these kinda things some more.

Kamis, 23 Februari 2012

Manual Hipster Generator




Failure is never a downside when you are able to look at the positives. These pictures are poorly taken by me as an art photography assignment. My lecturer said that these picture are underexposed, so I need to take new ones. Oh well, nothing goes to waste. HIPSTER PICTURE TIME! Thank you Poppy, my lovely studio mate, for lending me your Ricoh XR-15 and modeling in these pictures. I look forward to taking more pictures now.

Sabtu, 18 Februari 2012

The Faris Badwan Syndrome




Yesterday I got myself into the hospital for diarrhea. It was midnight when I started to feel the pain, an hour later started vomiting, and then the pain in my stomach worsen. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and I went to the hospital at 3 in the morning. I got a shot of medicine, and was allowed to rest there for a while until I was a little bit better to go home. The shot was freaky though, I thought to myself that how come the medicine is red colored, turns out my blood leaked into the syringe.

I wasn't allowed to go to campus and had to rest the whole day. Even my parents came all the way from Jakarta to Bandung early in the morning to take care of me. I feel happy and yet at the same time, if it weren't for the sickness I'd be spending my time properly with them. Oh well.

Although, being sick gave me the opportunity to just take a deep breath towards life. I could give my self a halt and rest from all the hustle and bustle that I'm currently going through; to take a break from painting, from all the events I'm currently helping at. And it also gave me time to just clear my mind of anything by drawing. I have been the most productive today than ever. Three sketches is just amazing. I don't know what's going on here, but I feel refreshed and the idea of Faris Badwan haunting in my head is slowly settling. Lately I've been fidgety because of Faris lurking inside my mind. I think I'm catching the Badwan syndrome. First symptom is having a great fetish towards long slender legs. OH NO!

Selasa, 14 Februari 2012

Life's Good, Not Best






This year's Valentine was like no other. I spend it with 2 of my mates and 5 musically talented and good looking men. Those men are famous with the name The Horrors, which consist of Faris Badwan as the vocals, Joshua Hayward on guitar, Rhyss Webb on bass, Tom Cowan on the synths, and Joe Spurgeon on drums.
The idea of The Horrors performing in Indonesia blows my mind and the fact that they did it in Bandung, out of all of the cities in Indonesia, definitely gave me a heart attack. I mean, this is a band that I listened to in my early years of highschool. And not to the content of getting into it everyday. I only listened to them on my leisure time. 
Then BAM! They're here 5 years later. It was definitely a surreal experience. As me, Cungek, and Desu went into the venue, our hearts were beating fast, impatient of those 5 presence. We waited for a reasonable amount of time, finally they came out to the stage. The lights were blinding and I'm pretty sure that I had a slight epileptic attack in my head from looking at the light show, but it didn't stop me from enjoying the men playing instruments in front of me.
Though my mind was battling whether to just enjoy the music or admire the slender legs that Faris has. Oh those Godly legs, how I wish to have them!
Sadly they didn't play the songs from the old days, the Strange House period. That was the first time I encountered The Horrors, it was like wandering off into a new world. Definitely the highlight of this new year.

Jumat, 10 Februari 2012

ITB FAIR 2012











A lot of effort was put into this 3 days and 2 nights event. I knew we could've done better, but considering with all the things that we've done to make that event happen, it was pretty much cool. I had a lot of fun doing a live painting in the day and being an American Native in the night.

PS: The face painting booth was pretty awesome! Even though we only had the chance to try it after the booth was closed for the night, we still had lots of fun taking pictures underneath those UV lights! Cue 2NE1's Ugly!