PSotD - Code Geass R1 OST 1

So the story goes, when and if pumpkin gets addicted to something, pumpkin gets addicted to it; stalks it to death; collects everything related to it; hallucinates about it; drools over it; breathes it; goes crazy (a.k.a. fangirls) over it; it becomes the only thing pumpkin talks about; and repeat.
What's pumpkin's latest craze? Code Geass (+bishies).

Title: Stream of Consciousness; Cold Nobility; The First Signature; In Justice; All Hail Britannia!!!

Artist: Nakagawa Koutarou
Year: 2006

Notes: A selection of songs from the first OST of the first season of the anime Code Geass (with some picture spammage in between). 
DDL: From keiichianimeforever.com 

SPYAIR to release new single, “0 GAME”

Rock band SPYAIR has revealed that they will be releasing their new single, “0 GAME“, on June 27th.

This will be the band’s first single since releasing “My World” back in March. Not much about the single has been revealed at this time, except that it will be available in both limited and regular editions.

Additionally, SPYAIR will hold a 3-day live called ‘Manatsu no 3ban Shoubu 2012‘ at Shibuya CLUB QUATTRO in August. The band’s official website is currently taking applications for ticket pre-orders.

Stay tuned for more details on SPYAIR’s upcoming single!

Source: Tokyohive

Miyano Mamoru holds special live

On May 6th, popular voice actor Miyano Mamoru held a special live called ‘MAMORU MIYANO SPECIAL LIVE 2012 ~FIGHTING!~‘ at Pacifico Yokohama.

Miyano is known for voicing characters in the animes ‘Death Note‘ and ‘Mobile Suit Gundam 00‘. Tickets for this concert sold out several minutes after it went on sale. He excited about 4,500 fans with 21 songs including “EGOTISIC“, “Orpheus“, and “FANTASISTA“.

The concert kicked off with Miyano showing off his dance moves alongside professional dancers. He greeted the crowd saying, “The special live has started! I’m going on full throttle from the beginning!” Aside from singing track lists from the album ‘FANTASISTA’ and “DREAM FIGHTER“, he challenged himself to a large jump rope and a game of ‘Russian roulette’, where he ate a piece of sushi with a lot of wasabi in it.

Miyano took the stage again for an encore after the crowd gave a “Mamo” call. He expressed, “I thought a lot about how difficult it would be to express myself at this big place. But after standing here, where I feel I’m not alone, I think I can take another step toward my dreams.” Miyano also thanked his fans saying, “I’m very glad that I got to spend quality time with everyone here today. Everyone, thank you!”

On August 22nd, Miyano will release footage from this concert and last year’s summer tour on DVD and Blu-ray.

Source: Tokyohive

PSotD - Stories

Title: Stories

Artist: Hitomi Kuroishi
Year: 2006

Notes: Insert song for the anime Code Geass. 
Such a calming and peaceful song. It brings forth a lot of emotions.

DDL: From Gendou music (Requires account - it's easy to make one!)

Anime Review (v.P): Code Geass - Rebellion of Lelouch (Season 2)

I take back the words I said in my review of Code Geass season 1. I am so watching this anime again! My view of this anime has totally changed after watching season 2. [Edit: Woah Code Geass is released in a shoujo manga? :mindblown:]

Synopsis: (from myanimelist.net)

A year has passed since "The Black Rebellion" and the remaining Black Knights have vanished into the shadows, their leader and figurehead, Zero, executed by the Britannian Empire. Area 11 is once more squirming under the Emperor's oppressive heel as the Britannian armies concentrate their attacks on the European front. But for the Britannians living in Area 11, life is back to normal. On one such normal day, a Britannian student, skipping his classes in the Ashford Academy, sneaks out to gamble on his chess play. But unknown to this young man, several forces are eying him from the shadows, for soon, he will experience a shocking encounter with his own obscured past, and the masked rebel mastermind Zero will return.

Review:

[STORY] Season 2 is filled with much more action, sneaky tactics, brain games and, of course, bishies! Initially, I found the first two episodes confusing with the introduction of the new character Rolo, Lelouch's younger brother. But once the truth of that part of the story was cleared up everything else seemed to fall into place and make sense. Rolo's final actions lead me to like his character. I'm still slightly confused about the goal of Lelouch's father and mother. I was really sad when they reported Suzaku dead; but I knew in the back of my mind that he would survive somehow, and to my delight he came back as Zero. I was sad to discover that in the end C.C. didn't get her wish fulfilled.

Rating: 7.5

[ART] The art style is similar to that of season 1, but I felt that the producers "smoothed out" some of the non-human styles that were present in the first season.
Rating: 7

[SOUND] I loved the second opening song World End by Flow. The insert song in the final episode was really good too.
Rating: 7

[CHARACTER] I fell in love with Lelouch even more. I loved his clothing design when Lelouch took to the throne. Is it just me or did Suzaku become more handsome in the second season? At some point I found that I started hating Nanally. I really disliked her weak character trying to act to be really strong and putting those around her in pain. Also, Shirely reminded me of Orihime from Bleach.

Rating: 7

[ENJOYMENT] With most of the characters laid out in Season 1, it made understanding the plot of season 2 much easier, and hence I found this anime to be very enjoyable.
Rating: 8

[OVERALL] There are a rare selection of animes whose endings can make me cry. Code Geass is now one of them. May you rest in peace my dear bishie, Lelouch.
Rating: 8

Anime Review (v.P): Code Geass - Rebellion of Lelouch (Season 1)

Simply put this anime is about revenge. This revenge takes the form of war and destruction.

Synopsis: (from myanimelist.net)

On August 10th of the year 2010 the Holy Empire of Britannia began a campaign of conquest, its sights set on Japan. Operations were completed in one month thanks to Britannia's deployment of new mobile humanoid armor vehicles dubbed Knightmare Frames. Japan's rights and identity were stripped away, the once proud nation now referred to as Area 11. Its citizens, Elevens, are forced to scratch out a living while the Britannian aristocracy lives comfortably within their settlements. Pockets of resistance appear throughout Area 11, working towards independence for Japan.

Lelouch, an exiled Imperial Prince of Britannia posing as a student, finds himself in the heart of the ongoing conflict for the island nation. Through a chance meeting with a mysterious girl named C.C., Lelouch gains his Geass, the power of the king. Now endowed with absolute dominance over any person, Lelouch may finally realize his goal of bringing down Britannia from within!

Review:

[STORY] For the most part of the anime I found it rather boring. The story where the protagonist is bestowed with a "special power" which they use to destroy and take revenge to create a "better world" reminded me very much of the storyline for Death Note; but I guess pride and revenge are the main themes surrounding shounen animes. It took me a while to get into the spirit of the anime. The beginning was confusing and too many characters were thrown into the plot at the same time. I only got excited about the story on the third last episode which was the climax point of the anime. I must give the ending some credit though, because I thought that the producers created a wonderful cliff hanger for the second season. Now I can't wait to watch the second season.
Rating: 7

[ART] Code Geass has a very unique art style. It definitely falls into the shounen art style. The joints of the human body are depicted as very pointy and sharp. Quite a lot of the shots are shown from below, giving the impression that the characters have long legs and disproportional body sizes.
Rating: 7

[SOUND] I didn't really like the opening or ending songs. However, the background music used throughout the anime was very well composed and matched the atmosphere.
Rating: 5

[CHARACTER] While having many characters in an anime or manga makes the story interesting and provides many branches of potential development, however, introducing too many characters without fully developing each character is a waste and confuses the audience. I felt that there were too many characters to keep track of. But I guess in a war story you need to create lots of people so that they can die.
I found it hard to like the main character, because he is portrayed as the evil one destroying the world, disrupting the peace and betraying friends. Nevertheless, Lelouch is a true bishie, and Pumpkin loves bishies. So in the end I think I do like Lelouch even though I disagree with Lelouch's actions. Further, Lelouch's seiyuu is one of my favourite seiyuus. The exact same things can be said about Suzaku. I Loved CC's voice.

I was disturbed by the fact that Euphie was Lelouch's first love. Geez they share the same father...that's just wrong.

Rating: 5

[ENJOYMENT] I found that only the ending was enjoyable. The other parts of the story was confusing, and yet again let me complain about the overdose of characters that were poorly developed.
Rating: 6

[OVERALL] If you asked me whether I would watch this again, the clear answer is 'no'. However, I would recommend this anime to people who like shounen style and mecha. I wish that I read the manga before watching the anime. I think I would've enjoyed the anime more because I would've understood the plot better.
If I may guess, my intuition tells me that Lelouch is going to die at the end of the next season - so time to watch season 2 and see what happens!
Rating: 7

My Loot

I find that retail therapy is an effective temporary relief from depression (provided you have enough spare money to spend). I reckon I earn enough to be able to spoil myself every now and then. It has been a while since my last shopping spree so this afternoon I decided to get some retail therapy.

I love accessories, especially rings because they have special meaning to me. So to start off my pampering, I went down to two accessory/clothing shops to check out if there were any cool items on sale. To my dismay, one shop had nothing interesting at all and all their items were really expensive. However, in the second clothing shop they had many items on sale, among them were necklaces, rings, bracelets, hairbands and scarfs. Three items immediately caught my eye.

Firstly, the two leather studded style bracelets (top left and middle). There was a black version of the bracelet in purple colour, but I decided against buying it because wearing a black bracelet with dark/black clothing doesn't really stand out. Next, I saw the chain/bracelet shown in the bottom of the picture and thought that it would look cool as a key-chain or strap. Just as I was walking out to the checkout I noticed the red flower clip shown in the top right. I thought that it would be a nice accessory to pin to my black dresses.

The next shop I visited was an anime/manga/figurine shop. This shop overcharges a lot but it's the only anime shop close to my workplace, and I know they ship quite a lot of their stuff directly from Japan and is trustworthy (i.e. doesn't sell fakes). Plus, shipping from across the country would be quite costly, so that is why I am still a loyal customer to the shop. I roamed around for a bit, staring in longing at the numerous (expensive!) nendroids, manga and artbooks. While I was looking around at the glass counter full of figurines I saw this really cute nendroid which was in my price range. This character was not from an anime that I have watched before. However, I fell in love with the cuteness of the character the moment I saw it and knew I had to buy it. It appears that this character is from an anime called Magical Girl Lyrical NANOHA - the Movie 1st. This nendroid comes in a blind-box set with a total of 8 characters, meaning that you buy a sealed box and inside this box is one of the eight possible characters, but you don't know what character is inside until you open the box up. I guess that's the fun and excitement of buying blind-box nendroids, you never know what you're going to get. So before I go and open mine, here's a few snaps of the packaging.

And now, drumroll please as I cut open my box...

Tada!

All in all, the total amount I spent today is less than the amount I get paid for one hour of work. The best thing is, for such small amount it helped me get rid of my depression...at least for tonight.

PSotD - Only My Railgun

Title: Only My Railgun

Artist: fripSide
Year: 2009

Notes: Opening song for the anime To Aru Kagaku no Railgun. 

Such a catchy and cheerful song!

DDL: From Gendou music (Requires account - it's easy to make one!)

And I'll throw in a Vocaloid (Len) version for kicks.

Fine fine, I'll throw in a Miku version as well. Enjoy.

Does this song make you feel like dancing?

Oh look, an Exit Trance version!

PSotD - Mai Kaze + Updates

Good evening. I'm in quite a good mood tonight. I restarted my anime marathon addiction. Around December 2011 I had put watching anime on hiatus mainly because I got sick and tired of the repeating (naive) storylines. But last night I realised that I had a lot of stress built up from "life", and it occurred to me that I had been feeling pretty depressed for over two months. I knew I needed a way of releasing these negative emotions. Previously, I found that drowning myself in music was an effective solution. Sadly, as of last week this antidote stopped working; No matter what music I listened to (even my beloved Gackt), they were not able to lift me from my depression hole. Last night I decided to start watching anime again, and it was a good decision. I'm feeling pretty good right now, having watched two animes, Another and Chaos;Head (edit: I also watched Accel World). As you may have noticed, today I posted an anime review on Another. This review (and hopefully many more to come) is independent of the anime reviews that MegaBubbletea has been writing, and the opinions are solely mine, pumpkin_so77.

Back to topic, tonight I want to share a song from one of my favourite animes Hakuouki. There's plenty of bishies to drool over in this anime so get your towels ready!

Title: Mai Kaze 

Artist: Aika Yoshioka
Year: 2010

Notes: Opening song for the anime Hakuouki: Hekketsu-roku.

DDL: From Gendou music (Requires account - it's easy to make one!)

Anime Review (v.P): Another

This anime is not for the faint-hearted. A rather gruesome horror story and it all began 26 years ago with a severe case of denial and a curse.
Warning: There will be blood, lots of blood. If horror is not your cup of tea DO NOT watch this. If you get scared rather easily I also suggest that you don't watch this at 2:30am.

Synopsis: (from myanimelist.net)

26 years ago, in a third-year classroom of a middle school, there was a student named Misaki. As an honors student who was also good at sports, the charming girl was popular with her classmates. When she suddenly died, her classmates decided to carry on as if she was still alive until graduation. Then, in the spring of 1998, a boy named Sakakibara Kouichi transfers to the class, and he grows suspicious of the fearful atmosphere in that classroom. In particular, there is a beautiful, aloof girl named Mei Misaki who wears an eyepatch and is always alone drawing pictures.

Review:

[STORY] It was a well paced and fully developed story. I did not find any part of anime that included useless information. All character developments helped enhance the suspense of the horror story and the progression of the story made logical sense.
From the first two episodes your inner senses would tell you that something was "not quite right" and that you suspect something terrible would happen soon. The shock comes in episode three when the first "death" happens. It was a crucifying death. I thought that the slow-motion effect of the death succeeded in contributing terror into this horror story.
I was quite pleased with the ending. It wrapped up the mysteries posed at the beginning of the story. One good aspect was that it didn't end with a "happily ever after" feel.
Rating: 9 (*Note: all ratings are out of 10.)

[ART] The average "school story" art, with big eyes for both males and females, slender faces and pointy chins. The backgrounds used were the typical Japanese neighbourhood and school grounds. There was nothing spectacular or unique about the artwork. This is in favour of the anime, because I think the main focus should be on the grotesqueness of the story and detailed artwork would just be a distraction for the viewer.
Rating: 6

[SOUND] I felt indifferent towards the OP and ED songs in this anime. They're not songs whose tunes stick around in your head. For a horror story, the producers could've chosen better songs.
However, I enjoyed the voice of the seiyuu that played Misaki.
Rating: 4

[CHARACTER] The characters were well developed. Sufficient information was provided to keep the suspense of the story going.
Rating: 6

[ENJOYMENT] Three words, I loved it. It had all the elements required for a good horror story. There were several parts of the story which I did not expect and thus created a big impact on me when the "truth" or event was unveiled.
Rating: 8

[OVERALL] A very "delightful" horror anime. This would definitely be on my "Re-watch list".
Rating: 8.5

PSotD - Thousand Enemies

Hoorah~ Now that Pumpkin has completed (one of) her (many) talk(s) today, Pumpkin can now relax a bit, well, until my next major task comes along. Time to catch up on music and (yes!) anime! I'm currently downloading Accel World and I'm very much looking forward to watching it tonight.

Title: Thousand Enemies

Artist: Girls Dead Monster
Year: 2010

Notes: Insert song for the anime Angel beats!

DDL: From Gendou music (Requires account - it's easy to make one!)

PSotD - Cantata Mortis & God in Fire

Hey guys, it's been a while (a week) since I last posted. I should probably change the name of this to "Pumpkin's Song of the Weekend" or something like that, haha. Anyway, today I wanted to share some music related to the game Final Fantasy, mainly because two days ago I found a DDL link to the Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy OST and I've been listening to it today. I've always loved gaming music, albeit not being much of a gamer (I lose concentration really easily). Honestly, I've tried FF I - VI, but only lasting at most 8 hours into gameplay each. I love how gaming music can generate so much suspense in short 2 minute loops, and the fact that most FF music are just epic-ly composed.

Title: Cantata Mortis & God in Fire

Composer/Artist: Takeharu Ishimoto, Tsuyoshi Sekito, Mitsuto Suzuki 

Album: Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy Original Soundtrack 

Year: 2011

Notes: Go to Dissidia 012 Wikia for more information about the game. Enjoy a few Final Fantasy cosplays below! (Note: I do not own these photos, all credits go to the cosplayers and the photographers.)

Links: DDL from Anime-Mp3.

Item Unlocked: My Bubbletea Time Forum

Hi everyone, I hope you had a productive day today. As you may have noticed we have added yet another tab at the top of this website. This new gizmo is our forum. On this wondrous page, you are most welcomed to share your thoughts and views on any topic you like. This forum is simple to use, there is no registering required, and you can remain anonymous in your posts. Of course the admins will be on watch for any flaming or inappropriate messages for the safety of our beloved readers. 

I hope to see you soon on our forum!

PSotD - Killer Machine

Yay~Another public holiday, and Jess stays at home in front of the computer, rotting and listening to a whole lot of trance music.

Title: Killer Machine
Composer/Artist: 8#Prince/Hatsune Miku
Album: Hammer 2
Year: 2011
Notes: I love 8#Prince. He makes awesome trance Vocaloid music. He is also very good looking (IMO :3). Here are some snaps of 8#Prince hard at work DJing.

Links: DDL from MikuDB.

PSotD - Inner Universe (Remix by The Enigma TNG)

Title: Inner Universe (Remix by The Enigma TNG)
Composer/Artist: Origa
Album: 攻殻機動隊 Stand Alone Complex O.S.T.
Year: 2003
Notes: The original song was the opening theme to the anime Ghost in the shell - Stand alone complex.
I was randomly surfing Youtube when I came across this remix and instantly fell in love with it!
Links: DDL from keiichianimeforever.

Congrats on the 5K!

I remember when MegaBubbletea first started up this blog, and also inspired me to create my own blog. 5000 views later, I'm glad to be a part of this. I have been quite busy recently so I have not been posting, but I will have content for you guys soon! Again, congrats to MegaBubbletea on the success!

Rhycen OUT!

5000 Hits - Congratulations from Pumpkin!

Good day fellow readers of My Bubbletea Time! Firstly, I want to apologize for my lack of spams posts mainly because I was lazy my supervisor was nagging me to produce more work. I'll be frank, there is a high probability that I will not post much in the next few weeks as I've got a talk coming up in 2 week's time and I need to prepare for that.

Anyhow, this post is dedicated to celebrating this blog reaching the milestone of 5000 hits, and us authors would like to thank you, our dedicated readers for all your support.

Initially, we were planning to set off fireworks in recognition of this achievement. However, we abandoned that plan when we realized that there might be potential health and safety issues/risks to such a task and more importantly, we do not own any fireworks.

Credits: overdoor

Hence, in such a joyous occasion let me share with you this fitting Vocaloid song composed by HALYOSY, called Fire@Flower (Note: The Japanese (Kanji) characters for the word fireworks can be literally translated as flower-fire [花火、はなび、ｈａｎａｂｉ]). The original version of the song was sung by Len Kagamine. Personally, I like the covers by Sekihan, Clear and Marasy (Piano cover), just to name a few.

Finally, let me share with you one verse from this beautiful song to express my emotions:

Like a Fire Flower　僕が　

消えちゃわないように　

火の粉散らせ　夢打ちあがれ

(English translation; credits)

Like a Fire Flower 

So I won't get put out 

My sparks will fly and I'll launch my dream. 

Credits: LeftAndRight