Original Saku

Lol really without the space xD but anyways this is some pleasant news, they deserve it hope we get a new album soon to compliment them going major.

So since this thread has grown quite a bit and people have already started posting friend codes everywhere, and also i expect this thread to eventually for the most part to be used as an coordination thread for battles and trades and the such. What do people think about converging all posted friend codes in a single post at the beginning of the thread for easy access so when this thread ends up getting past 10+ pages it won't be such a hassle to scour the thread for a specific code? I think this would make it much easier for people on MH to share their codes since all they would have to do is tell whoever they're trying to friend to check out the the opening post instead of having to continuously repost their code.
 
Let me know what you guys think. Of course I would be the one handling all of this.
 
Edit: I will wait about a day before I start converging the codes into the opening post, so if anyone wants to add anything to this (opinions, suggestions, objections, etc.) this is your chance to do so.

Basically I just want to say I agree with everyone that has said this is a JAPANESE music forum.
And, like Ito said, there are places within this forum already that you can discuss kpop if you want, nothing is stopping you. 

Personally, I think that if you want to discuss anything the best option is just to start a thread about it, you dont necessarily need an entire subforum to do so.
I like the fact that there is a mix of everything here so I dont feel like I have to just stick to one thing. The fact that there is a general entertainment, discussion, music etc category makes it easier to open up the topics to many more things. and like champ said, making those into separate subforums is just a lot of unnecessary work when it's already there.
I think the only reason a subforum should be implemented is just for the sake of organization but, lets be real here, aint nobody got time for that.
 
MH is a nice community where the members can discuss many things and is not only limited to japanese rock/vkei, but at the core, it IS a japanese music forum.
So that's what I have to say about that.

so this exists, let's just think about that...

 
Edit: and it is -PART THREE-  o.O

Gaze i love you too but imma punch you back
 
I'm not comparing this one to DIM at all. Where in my post did I say that? Just because I think this album is average that automatically means that I have this opinion because I compared it to DIM, and not for other reasons? I realized that if I do keep comparing everything to DIM I'm never going to be content (lol). People can actually dislike this album for other reasons than just "comparing it to DIM" and tbqh I'm starting to get a bit tired of the regular stan's argument of "OMG YOU CAN NEVER LOOK AT IT OBJECTIVELY BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS COMPARE EVERYTHING TO DIM". I see every album for what it is. Do you think I could ever enjoy BUCK-TICK's latest three albums if I constantly compared them to Kurutta Taiyou or DTD -style93-? Seriously, DTD shits all over both Yumemiru Uchuu and RAZZLE DAZZLE but I still think these songs are catchy and fun and well-executed. Is DTD better? Absolutely, no doubt it about it. Is RAZZLE DAZZLE therefore horrendous? No it's not. There are plenty of reasons why people dislike this album (as stated throughout the review thread) and you're going to have to come to terms with the fact that just because you like everything the GazettE does doesn't mean that everyone who dislikes it (or thinks it average, in my case) does that based on a very flimsy argument. You also have to realize people will ALWAYS compare, it's natural. Even if you don't like it, sorry (it may sound harsh) but you need to get over it. Also wow god forbid me that I mention DIM in a normal GazettE discussion because I actually really like that album (I didn't mention it in any GazettE thread for the last year so your argument fails on this part too).
 
The problem with the effort is that not EVERYONE seems to have tried because be REALLY REALLY honest here...if you have to look at the individual members' progress, isn't one of the 5 sticking out like a sore thumb (in a negative sense)? As multiple people have already has stated, Ruki is currently the weakest link of the band because the instrumentals on this album are GOOD and do lots of different things. Uruha, Aoi, Reita and Kai are the only ones who actually shine on this album but I feel like Ruki just drags the whole thing down with either stale vocals or boring choruses.
 
/anyway I'll quit now because this is off-topic and opinions differ blahblah so if you want to get back at me send me a PM though I doubt it's possible to change your mind on this

I'm only gonna say this once. Stay on Topic
 
This thread is not a place to fight your personal vendettas and I definitely don't enjoy coming in here and reading this shitfest.

I'm only gonna say this once. Stay on Topic
 
This thread is not a place to fight your personal vendettas and I definitely don't enjoy coming in here and reading this shitfest.

I'm only gonna say this once. Stay on Topic
 
This thread is not a place to fight your personal vendettas and I definitely don't enjoy coming in here and reading this shitfest.

I figure since it comes out tomorrow we might as well get a discussion topic going.
 
So who's all gonna get it and which copy are you getting, X, Y, or both? I've had my copy of X pre-ordered since last month and I just went and reserved one of the guide books today so I don't risk them selling out. I've been trying to avoid spoilers and leaks on the internet for the past few weeks but it's really hard not to be curious... I just get more and more excited when I see something new What's everyone most excited about? for me it has to be all the new mega evolutions xD
 
Oh and please no spoilers in this thread
 
 
 
     
      The Friend Code List
 
                                   Asakusa  |  3239-3238-6256                
                Augie1995  |  2766-9224-8762
                  Cupcakes  |  0834-1455-9042
                      Evenor  |  3110-4678-8650
                 Keyinjpop  |  3539-9645-0485
                Madygrain  |  4184-1718-1357
           Original Saku  |  3480-2539-1372
  Peace Heavy mk II  |  2509-2220-7491
   xPrincess_ChaosX  |  1203-9715-3358
                   -Ryuujii-  |  5343-9162-9352
                    Saishuu  |  2036-7399-7693
           Sakura Seven  |  2449-5941-4026
                          Seiji  |  1118-0309-5287
                  Styleover  |  1822-0207-1861
                          Zess  |  4914-4245-4090
 

Score: | *sigh*
 
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the most obnoxious visual kei release this year.
 
What makes Madrigal de Maria obnoxious?
Unforgivably cheap imitations of Kyo (Dir en grey) wails, shrieks, screams, coos, and gutturals for no other reason than to have wails, shrieks, screams, coos, and gutturals.
  Inconsistency of instrument quality. Compare the piano from Demons Cradle to the piano in 斑-まだら- and to the piano in 優シク殺シテ. Toy piano much?
  Very tacky use of synthesizer in some places.
  Sections of songs are ripped straight out of other Dir en grey songs. 嘘にまみれた真実の底 emulates 艶かしき安息、躊躇いに微笑み near the end. Demons Cradle's intro is reminiscent of THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB until all that MIDI garbage kicks in. 斑-まだら-'s is Vinushka x Different Sense from the backing growls during the first half of the chorus to the guitar solo right after the chorus to the gutturals lifting heavily from the Opethian passages of Vinushka. There are others scattered through the album too. I'm not one to rag on Sadie for their influences but it's so prevalent and badly incorporated that it universally detracts from my enjoyment of the album. If I really want to listen to Dir en grey, I'm just going to listen to Dir en grey, not Sadie's poor interpretation of it.
  Decadence. That song alone is bad enough to knock a star off the total score.
  A complete lack of conceptual execution. The overly Photoshopped, Cunning Killer 12012-esque album art could easily deceive a listener into expecting a brooding, darker, more mature album from Sadie. Right?

NO.

Sure, the first three tracks sound like they at least made an attempt to be DUM SPIRO SPERO Diru on a budget, but then after Decadence they decided to throw all that out the window and progress with business as usual until the end. The sad thing is, I don't think that it was a bad decision at the end of the album. Those first three tracks should have been dropped.
  No sense of flow from song to song. I've got standard Dir en grey worship, electro rock, acoustic ballads, pop-rock and bluesy leads in the first eight tracks. I like experimentation but even within experimentation I expect consistency.
  A bottom-heavy tracklist forces you to get to track seven before you actually -meet- new Sadie. Anything remotely worth listening to comes after Viper. I actually wanted to like this album too, believe it or not, but this is almost everything I hate about Sadie encapsulated in one album. I despise how much I can separate actual Sadie from their influences because when they want to be original, they can devise some great songs. They just choose not to.
 
I won't front completely because I do like a select few tracks from this album, which is the only reason why this album gets that second star.  Those tracks would be 斑-まだら-, Viper, 優シク殺シテ (somewhat), Face to Face, and 雪月花 (note how all of those tracks are at the end of the album). There's nothing as face-obliteratingly bad as BLACK STARS or GREEDY EMOTION, but everything else is not worth your time.
 
Sadie, you were not ready to release this. Try releasing an album full of music independent of Dir en grey for once. Or for once just admit that you can't do metalcore and stick to lighter, frillier music because you really do do it so much better.

dude, charizard CAN win against blastoise actually.
this is adapted to the new pokémon game era and stuff, so, if you take the status, the nature of your pokémon and you get perfection on your special attack, etc. a charizard can win against blastoise.

Well the season 4 opener was pretty fucking good, really intense and action packed from the very beginning. I gotta feeling this season is gonna get really crazy really quick.

finally made the switch to vapor

Plenty of people who used to dig the GazettE or are just curious what this big band puts out now will try the album, thus a higher chance of negative reviews. I'll explain this in the next paragraph. If I think an album isn't good, I will write a negative review but there's a difference between a detailed review on what you didn't like and the "lol this sucks I lost all faith in them gazerock is dead"-review.
 
GazettE has done quite a lot of different things and for each theme that they did they have a specific group of fans. You have the group that prefers their first few singles/minis from when they just started, the NIL group, the STACKED RUBBISH group, then there's the DIM group (including myself) and the ones that like a little bit of everything. Each album is different in a sense and the least amount of variety in between albums of the GazettE were TOXIC and DIVISION. This is the risk if you change for every album. You'll keep all fans and most of them will be disappointed it doesn't sound like NIL/STACKED RUBBISH/DIM, etc.

Uhh, as long as there's music being shared you can be sure that transcodes will appear.
 
Clearly if you ask around you will find more people who hate transcodes than people who love them. I am admittedly rather OCD about transcodes myself, but still, I'm hesitant about the sub-forum idea.
 
Assuming we set up a forum to house transcodes, I can quite literally imagine having:
A) people who report x as transcode and ask for them to be moved to your 'sub-forum'
B ) people [probably mods] who manually do the moving
C) a group of people who start protesting that x isn't actually a transcode and asked for it to be moved back
D) another group of people who mediate between A and C
E) etc.
You get the idea...
 
The problem (as Champ213 rightly pointed out) is that there's no universal way to prove beyond all doubt that something is simply a bad rip or a transcode. From experience, micromanaging transcodes does nothing meaningful but invite drama (I'm reminded of petty squabbles that go on for 100+ posts on a particular tracker over whether a Super Junior single is a transcode...).
 
Ultimately, I feel that if you really care so much about whether something is a transcode, it's up to you to decide if x is a transcode and what to do if it is. Just don't fall into the trap of spending more time looking at spectra than actually listening to the music.

nice!
 
I'll add you anyways, I'm trying to get a good base of people on my friends list so once I'm done with the main game I'll have plenty of friends to trade/battle with my friend code is a few posts up btw

totally missed this thread, but here is for my first contribution an anime that is a few years old (2006) and perhaps went a little under the radar for some people.
 

i added the OP to the post, which can give a quick impression of the general "feel" of the anime if that's ok. otherwise i'll just remove it again
 
 
EDIT: btw it is completely streamable (Japanese with english subs) on the funimation-channel on youtube as i see it...

Nice I didn't know about this one, so I'll check it out next time I have a rainy day with nothing to do
 
btw thanks for posting I was kinda getting a little depressed that no one was participating... but it's all good let's get this thread alive everybody xD

One Outs (http://myanimelist.net/anime/5040/One_Outs)
one of my favorite animes ever. i'm a big fan of mind games, strategies and gambling in general, so i do like what the main character, Tokuchi Toa, is doing during whole series. using his intellect he is overcoming people with impressive physical abilities. it shows us that baseball is not the game when you can win only by using your muscles, you also need to analyze the situation and build win strategy much more than in other kind of sport. 
when my friend recommended me this he said: "hey, you should watch it! it's even better than DESU NOTO". well, yes, the deduction part is better, but the main plot is pretty weak, like in the most of sport's animes. but still it's an awesome anime.
also i can recommend this is for guys who likes korean drama Liar Game. both (Liar Game and One Outs) mangas are from the same genious mangaka - Shinobu Kaitani. so if only anime wouldn't be enough for you, you can read the continuation in manga. and i hope you will enjoy it as much as i did
 
edit: also decided to add an opening theme, because it's great! but completly in different mood than anime lol Pay money To my Pain FTW!
 

This game is so wavy. It really feels like you're playing Pokemon for the first time again because you have no idea what's going on. Also, it makes 3 hours pass by like nothing.

^ I'm super Jelly.
 
I wish gamestops around my place broke streetdate, but none of them do... it especially sucks when I see people online on twitter and shit posting pics of them with their game days before release. makes me want to strangle them jk lol

I don't think we should ban the VK tag but maybe make it a requirement to not just use it alone since technically VK is not a genre it's a scene... I can see how it would be useful for people who just want to see VK related downloads though

It's good but it's kinda hard to say how it will turn out as the build that they are using for the beta is quite old (probably a 6-8 month old build) and not to mention a lot of the final game assets are not included such as ultra res textures and models, etc. so really the beta is serving more as a server stress test than anything else. but It is fun and you can tell that the destruction is ramped up a whole lot more than frostbite 2. as for if your gonna be able to run it, I would say if you can run BF3 relatively well on high settings then you should probably have no problem running this at launch. Since they both are running on technically the same engine it would be safe to assume that there should be no problems, if you want you could always just download the beta and test yourself, but be warned like I said it is an old build and their have been issues with certain graphics cards so even if you test it and it doesn't run as well as you hope it's probably due to the build.
 
if you don't mind me asking what are your pc specs? I should be able to tell you if you'll be able to run it decently based on your setup.
 
My specs are:
 
AMD phenom II black edition OC'ed 3.8 GHZ
MSI Radeon HD 7950 Twin Frozer Boost Edition
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
16 GB Crucial Ballistics Ram

I don't think changing the staff will change the state of the forum in itself, but I think it could be a step in the right direction and it's a visible change that will improve the forum's morale.
 
Speaking of visible changes, perhaps changing or improving the current forum theme and the forum banner would help to refresh MH and revive moral. (Personally, I've always been a fan of rotating banners).
 
 
However, we can sit here and talk about cosmetics all day, but visible changes aren't truly substantial changes. I think what this forum needs most of all is a solitary purpose. I feel as if everyone wants mh to change, but every seems to have different ideas (or no ideas at all) on what they want MH to be. If we establish a clear identity and singular goal, then we can proceed from there.
 
Ask yourselves this, what do you consider MH to be? A VK forum? A J-rock forum? A Japanese music forum? A forum for kpop and VK? What are we exactly?
 
 
Personally, I've always viewed MH as a Japanese rock forum. Sure, we've always had an abundance of visual kei fans here. So with that in mind, I've tried to do my part to share, discuss, and promote non-visual bands with the hopes of cultivating appreciation for Japanese rock as a whole and not just one scene in particular. That's what I've been trying to do personally, but to be completely honest, I have no idea if the rest of the staff shares my sentiments.
 
That's why I ask you all, before you jump and try to change the staff, I urge you all to come up with a goal, a singular purpose that you all can devote yourselves to as part of the staff. If you guys have no goal, then you're not going to get very far. I think that's the problem with the current staff. Everyone means well, but we've kind of lost sight of what our goal(s) should be.
 
When you guys come up with a purpose, a goal, or some kind of mission, then I will gladly abdicate my position to anyone you deem worthy. But as of now, with no goal in mind, we don't really have much of a standard to judge the current staff by other than their activity level - to which you guys have stated will take much more to be a mod.
 
So, once again. I'll charge you all with this task. Decide where you want to go with MH. Decide what you'd like MH to be. And from there, develop a criteria that you think the staff should be able to meet. If I don't meet the criteria, I will gladly step down.
 
I'm all for reconstruction. But before you guys start detaching pieces and putting them back together, have a clear vision of what you want to build first. Let's see a blueprint and then go from there.
 
At the end of the day, I'll do whatever is best for MH.

i guess stuff like how to change the forum would rather belong into the thread magatsu  created, but im just going to include it to this post , as it somehow belongs to modteam changes too (you need to have some ideas too after all.)
 
many regulars (at least chat regulars) talked about this situation for a while. its a fact that the forum is less populated than it was before , so we wondered why and talked about the whole situation a lot in the chat recently. but stuff like that belongs in the open or nothing gets changed at all. i also hope that people might join this discussion.
 
General thoughts about responsibilites and the modteam:
 
Like dispo said, the most important thing about a modteam that they are 1) active active active and 2) actually interested in the stuff the forum offers and 3) actually interested to be part of the community.
Sadly i dont see any of these things in the current modteam. there are exceptions of course , but im not going to say any positive or negative examples as that wouldnt be fair to anyone of the current mod team.
 
To get a little bit more detailed.
 
1) Lately i refer to mh as a lawfree place. you rarely see any mods and wrong topics or stuff like that sometimes stay on the site for a few days or they just dont get discovered at all. So thats where the first point comes in: a mod/admin team should actually be active and not just hope for the best and be kinda idle all the time. again as dispo said i dont know whats going on behind the doors, but i was a mod myself in the past( im going to say a bit about that too later on) and theres not so much stuff "backstage" to actually justify the common abscene of mods on here.its not the users job to report any single wrong thing in the forum. of
course its nice to report something if you see it, but in a ideal situation the mods themselve would see stuff and correct it .
 
2) that leads me to my second point: you need to be interested in the stuff thats posted here to actually be able to properly do you rmodwork. not being interested in most of the news and downloads posted here AND being lazy or away is the worst combination possible. again: in a ideal situation or rather in a must be situation the mods actually need to be interested in visual kei /jrock /the news / kpop / whatever to be able to mod properly.  its ok if one moves away from vk or anything offered here, but then you are just not fit to be a mod on a forum about that stuff anymore. imo a mods job is not just moving topics/locking threads. its also to be highly dedicated and interested in what the site is about, to take part in discussions and be a part of the community. and thats what my third point is about. one shouldnt be a mod just to ensure "law", one should be a mod because he/she LOVES to be on this site and LOVES the stuff the site is about. its just sad and cant be justified if a mod has like 5 posts in two months.
 
and to actually reach that goal the mod team (and/or possible new mods) needs to be reviewed. that leads me to a bit of my own mod story and why i left the "team". it wasnt a team at all in the past.
when i joined the mod team back in tainted world days it was actually more or less a team. everyone was fairly active and you could b e sure that if you wouldnt be able to look into the forum for lets say two days, someone else would be there for sure. that changed someday. sooner or later i found myself doing most of the stuff myself as some of the staff was just suddenly away and others lacked interest in the forum. that quickly lead to my removal of the team, because i just dont want to look over everything all the time , even though i really love this forum(im part of it for 6 years or so now). but a team is a team and not one single person and the others can lay back and hope that no one registers on the site.
meaning: a mod team should consist of people that actually care about the forum and want to increase the community AND actually being interested in the stuff thats most common in here. ideally a team should be mixed with people that like different things (vk, jrock, jpop, kpop, other stuff) .
 
of course things can stay like they are now, but the forum is slowly dying and it will die out sooner or later. im going to talk more about that in the second section, but atm theres no real reason to join mh. i chat with people yes, but i can just add them all to skype and it would be the same.
and thats the point: a mod team should be a good role model and actually be interested to be a part of the community.
 
now theres maybe the question who should be a mod: thats something that should be discussed later on , IF this might actually change something. i for myself would be willing to join, BUT it depends on how much the team changes and if i can actually say "yes this is a team of people who are active", because no one can change something alone.
 
 
changes for the forum, current situation, what to do?
 
first im just going to repeat something i said on the chat some days ago about the current situation: monochrome heaven as it is right now is just another blogspot site. sounds kinda stupid? maybe but if you take a closer look its not exactly far fetched. currently the only really active stuff on the site are 1) the chat 2) dl section 3) news section. lets see what a random vk blogspot offers me: news and downloads on one site and most of the time a chatbox on the sidebar. sounds exactly the same.
 
so that relates to the activity of the forum: if you visit this forum for the first time (maybe even coming from a blogspot because you saw that many downloads come from here) you actualyl see that its not different at all, so why contribute to the forum at all? seems kinda useless.
 
and thats the one most important thing right now: ACTVITY. especially in other existing categories or in new forums. because if things stay like that than monochrome heaven is just another blogspot. nothing else.
 
so what could be changed about that? for me its out of the question that we need to look into things beyond visual kei /j-rock. imo it wouldnt hurt to be a little bit more open to other asian stuff as k-pop/rock and maybe even other stuff like dramas. we had a bigger music section a while ago and imo it worked quite well (own forums for western and korean music for example) i think it was all migrated into the general music section in an attempt to make the forum slimmer. imo that kinda failed, as the general music section is a huge mess right now and if you are interested in korean music for example its kinda impossible to see whats in the section.
 
its not going to hurt anyone if we try to get people from other genres over here. its not like the vk section is going to decrease just because we have a kpop section and not just a general music section.
ideally people might even check other sections if they are active, but one can also just stay away from it. not like anyone forces you to be part of every single section here.
 
alright thats it from my side. if i can think of anything else to change the forum im going to add it