Shurikn's Blog

Sunday, March 9, 2014

IRON ATTACK!, IOSYS and 5150 in Akihabara

Today, after helping my friend move, I went to akiba. I went there to see the live of IRON ATTACK!, IOSYS and 5150 that started at 18:00, but I got there around 13:00 so I had time to walk around and take some nice pictures.
Sundays in Akihabara re "walkers heaven" where the streets are blocked to cars, so it's ideal for taking nice pictures of Akiba, and since I got my new Nexus 5 with KitKat, I was able to get some pretty sweet photo spheres of Akiba. you can check them both here: (but you'll need google + to see the sphere effect)
Photo Sphere in front of Animate and Toranoana
Photo sphere near the Akihabara Station

Of course a trip to Akiba would not be complete without a few Itasha:

I also met a nice Miku cosplayer in the Sega arcade who let me took a picture of her

At 5 I headed toward the Live's venue.
The venue was again pretty small, and it was completely packed.

Now one thing that can be a problem when you become a little more know is that it's harder to write what you want. I know some people might read this blog, that actually performed at the show, but I'm still gonna try to say what I think, even if there are some negative points.
I hope those concerned won't take it too badly, as this is only my personal opinion, based on my personal tastes.

Te show started with 5150, I was actually surprised to see he was only singing and didn't play the guitar, he had another guitarist with him there. It was kinda funny too, because when he introduced the band members, he almost introduced himself as "on the guitar". His performance was pretty good overall, but I actually didn't know many songs, I think he played only 1 song from the albums I have. And... I guess this is my own fault, but I never knew he did a black metal album, his growling voice really surprised me. I actually don't like that kind of music, so I didn't enjoy the last two songs, but I can still say that his growling voice was pretty good... well, for a growling voice.

After 5150 was IOSYS. The problem... or good point of IOSYS is that there's so many members, going to see IOSYS can be very different from one time to the other.
The last time I saw them (you can read about it here) the vocalist was 山本椛 (Momiji Yamamoto), this time it was 96. The rest of the band was pretty much the same lineup as last time.
But a different vocalist means different songs (except for a couple). 96 have her own songs, and Momiji has her own, so of course that's to be expected. 96 was pretty good on stage, and has a cute voice, but her stage presence and energy is nowhere close to Momiji's. It was especially apparent in the 2 songs she did, that Momiji also did, 断罪ヤマザナドゥ！(Danzai) and Chirno's perfect Math class.
And don't get me wrong here, I believe 96 is a good singer, but Momiji was just a lot better.
It was still a nice performance, and Cirno's perfect math class was again the highlight of the show. Though Miracle, Hinacle was also pretty good.

Last was IRON ATTACK!
For those who knows the bad, on CD they have a lot of vocalist, but usually live it'S always Uma and まいなすいょん(minusiyon), but this time a third singer was also present. I think it was YAMA-B, but I'm not 100% sure.
They were solid as usual, but I think the best surprise is they played a song by Sister's spread-i (まいなすいょん's circle) ALICE IN HEAVEN. And I love that song, I was really glad they did it.
And Ion was really cute in her stage outfit, but sorry I didn't get any pictures this time.
I guess the negative point of the show was they they didn't do any Marisa song (Sparking or STAR DUST) I really love those songs, but at least they did a couple of other really good ones, and a few new ones that I knew a little less.

Overall a very good show, and a very good day.
Akihabara is the best!

Update:
Here's some pictures from yesterday's show via ToranoanaRecords Twitter: 2014-03-09 Live In Akiba

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Lil Update

Hello everyone! here's just a little update, Nothing big happened yet, so I didn't post many thing. The first few weeks back were pretty much me settling back, and trying to find an apartment, then settling into said apartment.
You can see the pictures of the apartment here: apartment

As you can see it's quite bigger than what I had last time, and it's about the same price, though the other one came with a fridge and a bed and a desk, this one came empty. The main advantage is that it's a 2 minute walk from here to my workplace! That pretty much means I have now 2 extra hours per day since I don't have to commute anymore.

Getting an apartment suck in Japan btw (unless you use a company specialized with Gaijin). Japanese real-estate agency are fucking thieves. My appartment rent is ~68000 yen per month or so, that'S fine, but in order to be able to get it, I had to first pay the first 2 month (february was already halfway through so 1.5month) which is fine, then 1 month for deposit, that I should get back when I leave and 20000 yen for insurances. These are the normal fee that I accept to pay, and understand why they exist, the followings though, are where it gets ugly. 1 month "key money" which is pretty much just money you give to the owner of the place as a gift, 1month agency fee, same thing but for the agency you used to rent the place, 20000 cleaning fees for cleaning the room before I get there (oh btw when I'll leave I have to pay 30000 yen cleaning fee so they are charging everyone twice for cleaning, which mean the same cleaning is being paid twice), 15000 yen for changing the key (which in all reality should be like 2000 yen) + some other samll fees I don't remember.
So right now I'm living on a pretty low budget for a while.

Though I said nothing much happened, at least 2 things did happen that were pretty nice, I met a friend from Google+ in Akiba, I was able to see Tokyo covered with snow, which was pretty nice (pics here: Snow In Shimokitazawa) and I met a friend from Quebec I had not seen in like 12 years or so (since high school).
It's kinda weird, I haven't seen him for 12 year, and I meet him in Tokyo, to then learn his sister is actually one of my friend and he's also a friend of one of my Ex Gf... We were kinda close for a while without even noticing it, yet we had to be on the other side of the globe to meet again!

That's all for today!
Here's a little pic to help you through your day!


Picture of the March page of a calendar I ordered before leaving Japan

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Back in Japan!

So I'm back in Japan again! This time I got a 1 year Work Visa.... which is supposed to be easy to renew... I'm kinda disappointed to have gotten only a 1 year one because it makes long term contracts harder to get (rent/cellphones)

The flight has been horrible, I don't know what happened with Air Canada... maybe it's because it was a week flight, and that's the first time I fly during the week, but I found the service to be lacking compared to the usual. Also, during the Vancouver to Narita flight, there was turbulence all the way, I've never been shaked for so long.

I'm on jet lag now, but already had a couple of nice meals.
Still looking for an appartment, waiting for the answer from an agent to whom we sent a request earlier this week.

I enjoyed my month back in Quebec, I met a lot of people I missed and will be missing in the future. But I'm glad to be back in Japan.

Nothing much more to say, I should be posting more this year, but my post will be shorter probably, I noticed that when I planned big post, I never posted them on time if I posted them at all.

That's it for now!

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Top 50 Illustrations of 2013

Hello, here's another "top of 2013" post. This one is about illustrations. Of course, this only includes illustrations I have shared in 2013 (and that were released in 2013), I'm sure there are other epic illustrations I have not shared or I have not seen in 2013. Also, the classification was really hard to make, so while I tried my best to make a 50 to 1 list, classed by my feelings for each of these pictures, please take this post as just 50 really beautiful pictures released in 2013!

50. 平沢唯 | らぐほのえりか [pixiv]