fitear1590

Fitear, somewhat to the rescue!

I managed to get a crappy quality rip of the song (honestly, the quality it was uploaded in wasn't that great in the first place), so if you wanna hear it, you can:

viewtopic.php?p=237308#p237308

I never could figure out that "dwango" site, but fortunately for the rest of us, you can hear their song "LiNK" on youtube:

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Obviously, it's lovely to hear Icchi's voice again! Love him. I had no doubt about that.

I have to say the song, music-wise, is honestly better than I thought it would be. Their ridiculously happy/bright profile pictures had me worried they'd be spewing rainbows and sunshine out of their asses 24/7. But I'd say this is the kind of VK pop-rock I like: catchy, but not overly happy/annoying; good guitar work; slightly dramatic; with touches of heaviness (not unlike Canzel/UNiTE).

Good job, boys. I hope the single will deliver more goodness.

Damn, not really the "going out with a bang" sort of tracklist I was hoping for.

Hopefully the old songs will at least get some remastering, though.

^ Not bad, whitegrey!

Btw, those crazy fackers バックドロップシンデレラ (Backdrop Cinderella) are releasing a new album, "Jackson" on September 19. Looking forward to it!

visual-kei band "レクレンズ(reclens)" has "disbanded" after their last one-man live "空を睨む夜(sora wo niramu yoru)" at Shibuya REX at 2012/08/20, and rock band "レクレンズ(reclens)" has formed at that one-man live

"レクレンズ(reclens)" members:

Vo.&Gt.&Prog.熊谷典之(kumagai noriyuki)(クマ/kuma)

Gt.&Vo.市川栞(ichikawa shiori)(チカ/chika)

Ba.齋藤啓太(saitou keita)(ユズキ/yuzuki)

Dr.尾崎麻里奈(ozaki marina)(まぁ/mar)

Oh those fucks

Is this like a parody of how "deliberate" and specific all VK announcements have to be? That's awesome, haha.

ねごと/negoto (technically a PV still, but I luv it)

What PV is it from?

It's from their メルシールー (merci lou) PV, the very last shot of the video.

I doubt it's on youtube anymore (their stuff is removed so quickly), but here's a link to dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqa7sl_yyyyyy_music

I'm a big Soul Calibur fan (I have 1 on the xbla, 2-3 for ps2, and 4 for 360), but I kinda stopped playing video games for about a year and missed this one. The reviews weren't too stellar, but when the price goes down enough that I'll probably pick it up sometime.

I remember liking Hilde a lot too, but my general characters are Xianghua, Seung Mina (cheap, I know!), Lizardman/Sophitia, Yunseong (spelling?), and I dabbled with Ivy. I understand quite a few characters have been eliminated in this new one though, so I'm not sure how I feel about that...

Btw, sorry I can't contribute much to this topic, but if you were to make a general "fighting games" topic, I'd post a lot, haha. I realized in the past few weeks that fighting games make up the largest chunk of my collection.

More of a question for digital music: does anyone know about this "dwango.jp" website?

There's a song I want to listen to from there, but I think the site only caters to people with android phones...

Can anyone confirm this? If so, are their any alternatives or is that the only way?

Scored this Sega Saturn lot on craigslist!

I originally only wanted Marvel vs Street Fighter, Fighting Vipers, Street Fighter Alpha, and Virtua Fighter Remix. The guy selling it all said I only had to pay $15 for Marvel vs SF and the other 3 games would be free. I felt bad, so I offered him $20 for those 4 games. Then he said I could just have the entire lot so he wouldn't have to worry about selling anything else!

The prices included on the picture show you how much the items can sell for on amazon.com.

Remember, I paid 20 USD for the whole bundle!

Needless to say, it was a great deal!

Thanks for sharing CaRaN, I always miss their videos until you post about them, haha.

"io" probably won't be a favorite track of mine, but it definitely has a different feel from a lot of their songs, so I appreciate that. I'm glad they resisted the urge to do rapping, because I could definitely see them trying to worm that into this song, somehow. Judging from the style, I'm guessing this is composed by LiN?

Already on 2nd and 3rd listen, I'm liking the song more and more, haha.

Also, Haku's one eye made me do a double take/lol.

Preview of 2 songs:

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I gotta say, they sound pretty good! Walpurgis especially sounds nice, because frankly, that was the weakest track on their album/ probably one of their most "meh" songs overall, but it sounds more energetic live. Much better.

Looking forward to the full thing!

Wow, same as you Pandabear. I don't care much for spectator sports like basketball, american football, etc, but the I usually check out the Olympic Games when they're on. I enjoy watching diving, swimming, gymnastics and even badminton. Olympic badminton is epic, but unfortunately I haven't seen any this time around. I hear there was some kinda scandal though and some competitors were disqualified for deliberately throwing matches or something?

I rarely cheer for "certain" athletes or countries, because whoever wins deserves to win. However, I am reserving some special support for Gabby Douglas (US women's gymnastics) since she's from right around where I live!

I remember I always seemed to want a Nintendo 64 or whatever it was called because I wanted to play Starfox. DO A BARREL ROLL.

I have a few Star Fox nerd friends and one of them literally had "DO A BARREL ROLL" as their senior quote in the yearbook, haha.

God damn, Aion! That is a gigantic console collection. Seems you skipped on the Sega Saturn ( ), but I love that you enjoy the Dreamcast! Yet another overlooked/underrated console. Looking forward to your write-up!

We need a nice thread to discuss the classic video game consoles. I mean stuff like the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive), Super Nintendo, the original PlayStation, etc. Basically, anything older than our current XBOX 360/PS3/Wii era, haha.

I recently went to the "Art of Video Games" exhibit in the Smithsonian Art Museum in Washington DC, just for kicks. It made me extremely nostalgic and when I got home, I instantly broke out my old systems. I'm somewhat of a Sega fanboy, so I have a Genesis, a Saturn, and a Dreamcast. I know Sega was kind of an outcast console developer, in the US at least, but I have a pretty big library. According to people's "top 10" type lists all over the internet, I do have quite a few of the classics and highly collectible games for the Genesis and the Saturn!

Some of my personal Sega favorites are games like the Virtua Fighter series, pretty much the entire Sonic the Hedgehog series, Super Street Fighter II, Shining Force III, Nights into Dreams, Saturn Bomberman, Guardian Heroes (which actually got a re-release in the XBLA), Power Stone 2, etc.

I'm currently scouring any "retro" video game stores I come across to continue building my collection. Kinda sucks that you mostly find sports games and scratched up discs everywhere, but you occasionally do find a gem. Ebay/Amazon also helps. I also learned that my Saturn, thanks to a special cartridge that I happen to own, can actually play games of all regions (aka, I can play European and Japanese games without any problem, besides the potential language barrier). I'm looking into importing some of those awesome 2D fighting classics that never made it to the US, like X-Men vs. Street Fighter (the Saturn port is considered vastly superior to the PlayStation one), among other things. I also want to look into some of the lesser known Sega "add-on" consoles that I never really checked out, like the 32X and the Sega CD (Sega Mega CD). I know they were largely considered failures, but there were some games that are still sought after today.

ANYWAY, enough out of me.

What old(er) video game consoles do you still play? What are some of your favorite games? Do you still buy "retro" games? If so, where? Do you feel older games offer something that the current generation games cannot? Etc.

Discuss!

ps: if you have any old Sega games you're thinking about selling, we should talk, haha.

Just in case people didn't see the request thread:

kurenai_suiren from the scarlet valse livejournal community will provide a FREE shopping service for anyone wanting to purchase SV releases (such as Voyage in Chronos) or goods. You just have to pay for the item itself and shipping.

If you want to buy this single, I suggest you contact kurenai_suiren.

Here's the post about it: http://scarlet-valse.livejournal.com/2835.html

Anyone checked out the new solo album of 後藤まりこ (vocalist/guitarist "Mariko Goto" of Midori)? When it was announced, it was advertised as a pop album, so don't be expecting the second coming of Midori (or rather, the third coming, since 385 is the second, ). Despite that, it's a pretty cool album. There's still moments of creativity and weirdness, but it's just not as loud as Midori. Definitely worth at least a listen, imo.

In other news, I come bearing a Japanese music gift from Spotify. I know Hotel Mexico was featured on this forum at one point, probably on one of Aion's mixes. Well, while I enjoyed some of their songs, I thought their release "His Jewelled Letter Box" as a whole wasn't that strong... Mostly marred by really strange vocals. Well, they have a new single that's actually been released on a Western label (and that's probably why it's on spotify!) A good single, I enjoy both tracks. The music seems more lush and beautiful this time and the vocals are more buried in the mix, giving them a more ethereal edge.

Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/3KUlCxQkLOD9YQ1thFaWWd

(hopefully that link works)

Mmm, Blood Brothers. Miss them! Do you happen to know of any Japanese bands that remind you of them, bonsaijodelfisch?

I'm having new music discovery overload right now, but this band really struck me. Simple, maybe even a bit amateur-ish(?), but also really dreamy and beautiful. Somehow nostalgic, yet really fresh.

PO6lb0yzoRw

Justice itself tried to be too "epic" and had too much Ayame.

Dear god, someone else thinks this too? I really believe Ayame's style of playing (obvious cheap string sounds that don't mask the fact that they're being played on a keyboard) is a detriment to the band. That and the fact that Sono sounds squeaky and overuses the shit out of VK-vibrato.

They surprise me every once in a while though, so hopefully these releases will be more hit, less miss.

Thanks for your feedback, biopanda!

As long as you heard at least something you liked/experienced some new stuff, then I'm satisfied.

Ideally, I'd like to listen to all the mixes posted, but yours will be at the top of my "queue" so to speak!

I actually thought this was better than the terrible Yohio solo stuff.

As minre mentioned, the vocals weren't too bad (definitely better than whatever that other Seremedy track is, with a PV) and I'm thankful they didn't try to sing in beginner's Japanese.

I know VK always has terrible "glamour shots" in their PV's, but seriously, just about every shot of Yohio was embarrassing/gif-worthy, haha.

Don't know why, but if you open the link, the news is no longer available. o_O'''

Must've just been July Fools Day.

Man, I'm kinda shocked, but I know they were gradually losing a lot of fans with their "boring" (their words, not mine) new stuff.

I hope that their final album will be good. It'd be nice for them to go out with a bang, rather than on a low note...

For my third mix, I would like to highlight a style of music that I really enjoy: stuff that can be described as weird, crazy, erratic, strange, etc. (Of course, that is subjective, so this mix is naturally my understanding of those terms.) What you'll hear in this mix: loudness; wild vocals; creepiness; insane guitar riffs; weird instrumentation; high energy; all performed by Japanese artists of different genres/scenes. What I wanted to do was to introduce a mix of somewhat known and lesser known Japanese indie groups that play a unique, crazy style of music, but one that is still somewhat catchy and accessible. I didn't include extreme stuff like Merzbow, because frankly, that's beyond my realm of enjoyment. Hopefully, since my mix is only about 37 minutes, the mods will forgive me for having an extra track! So with that convoluted intro, let's get onto the bands!

Kicking off the mix, I chose something that definitely fits the mixtape’s style, but is a bit tamer than some of the other stuff. A solid indie rock track with some weird vocals and slappy bass. However, the second half of the song amps up the craziness! The "AHHHHHH" section reminds me of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," haha.

Gusya ningen plays a dark, intriguing style of psychedelic rock. They often have creepy talking sections, as well as some rough screeches. Btw, this is "that band" that had a PV full of bloody noses and nose picking.

An eroguro theater group. They have a band, featuring the usual instruments, a keyboardist, and dual vocalists. However a number of actors/actresses are also considered part of the band. Expect a semi-traditional Japanese influence, lots of chanting, and lots of energy.

To take a break from the more rock-oriented stuff that's played so far, we have OORUTAICHI with his extremely eccentric style of electronic folky world music. I'm pretty sure the singing is in a made-up language. Weird stuff, no doubt.

If you don't know Ziyoou-vachi yet, you've been missing out. This group has been making noisy punky goodness since 2009. The band features 2 black siblings (not exactly common in Japanese music) and the vocalist is transgender. If the band name (literally "queen bee") didn't clue you in, this band is all about the fabulous, with their glitzy, intricate outfits and flashy PVs. Vocalist Avu-chan often switches from baby-like "female" vocals to gruff "male" vocals, all while the musicians rock out in quite a frenetic, noisy fashion. Oh by the way, did I mention this band is signed to a major label? Pretty impressive.

Aicle was always touted as "that garish oshare band with helium vocals". I swear, half the people that heard this band completely missed their one-of-a-kind psychotic style. Guitarist Rubi is a god. Listen to those creepy, crawly guitar riffs around 00:38 and 00:43. Those kinds of intricate riffs continue throughout the song, as vocalist Emiru belts out his infamous helium vocals and growls. An acquired taste for sure, but the combo of Rubi/Emiru really made Aicle a force to be reckoned with. Too bad they didn't maintain this style and they disbanded...

These nerds can get loud. THE ACT WE ACT plays extremely loud, cacophonous experimental rock. Lots of shouting. However, what sets them truly apart is their noisy saxophonist. Definitely not something for everyone, but I love their ambition and energy.

Shinsei kamattechan (meaning something like "divine attention whore") plays anthemic power-pop. What makes this band so zany is, frankly, the fucked-up vocals. There's a chaotic, raw Jun Togawa-esque energy here. You'd think that these obviously female sounding vocals would come from that female member in the picture. Nope, the male singer (the guy on the right, I believe) pitch-shifts his vocals to create this layered and scary mess. I love it.

Bogulta are a "hardcore electro punk" group. The members are from Zuinosin, if you’re familiar with them. They give this mix the loud, electronic edge it needs. Bizarre, in-your-face, and fun, with a dark edge.

Kiryu are one of the remaining saviors of the stagnant era of neo-VK, imo. They have a "traditional Japanese" influence in their dark, wacky sound. Once again, the vocalist (Mahiro) is an acquired taste, but he's good at what he does (one of those "not-the-best-singer-but-awesome-vocalist" scenarios). Musically, this song has a creepy intro, some insane guitar riffs and a bangtacular (albeit too short) bass/drum interlude, right before the solo. This band definitely has some screws missing, in the best way.

Unfortunately, Kulu Kulu Garden has disbanded, but I thought they had a lot of potential. They combine aggressive guitars and a mix of soft vocals and rowdy Midori-ish yelps. The song starts off rather “tame” but builds up and gets noisier and more interesting as the song goes on. I think it’s a worthy closer to the mix.

_____________________________

By the way, this mix can also serve as a recommendation starting point. If you know of some bands that seem to fit this definition of “weird/crazy, yet accessible,” please pass them my way! Hopefully you will discover a few bands that you’d like to look into more and it'd be great if learned some more bands too!

Enjoy the mix and please leave some feedback on the PROJECT MIXTAP3 DISCUSSION Thread!

Since I promised in the 2nd Mixtape Thread to listen to Aion's mix, I did!

So, here's my absolute favorite tracks from the "Aionline.eu best of 2011.2" mix:

I loved that Insect Kids track. Good indie rock sound, with moments of brassy instruments and a noisy layered sound. I thought I'd heard something by them before and the vocals were a bit messy, but they sounded fine here.

宇宙人 had a nice beat and just the right high-pitched female vocals, so that they weren't too saccharine J-poppy. Cool song name too, haha.

潮田雄一 was a great, relaxing acoustic track. I'm definitely interested in hearing more from this guy.

シャムキャッツ was yet another awesome low-key indie pop track. I need more of this too, haha. I already knew of

dry as dust (actually 1 of the only 2 bands I knew on here, haha) and I'm glad you included this fun track.

hemlock had more energy than most of the other stuff that I "favorited," but they had a great guitar sound, what can I say? Unfortunately, they chose an extremely common name and their last.fm page is a mess right now, haha.

Finally, the closer track by ミツメ had some lovely twangy indie pop guitar.

Overall, a good mix/survey of some of 2011's indie offerings. Quite a few bands that I certainly would like to hear more from.

Expect my mix posted probably tonight or tomorrow!

I kinda have a problem with YesAsia.

I tried to order a DVD and some books. I tried to do it a couple of times because I constantly had error messages. I checked my customer account and none of the goods were placed as order. I am not sure whether they got my order or not, since I do not have anything in my customer account. I am kinda afraid that somehow all of my orders will show up tomorrow.

Is YesAsia really as bad as many people in the net are writing? If yes and if none of my orders were placed I think of using another shop.

If the items are not showing up in your customer account, then I think it's safe to say that they probably weren't ordered...

Have you tried contacting Yesasia about the problem?

And I've tried to order 3 things from Yesasia and only once did I have a problem (they didn't have something in stock that was listed on their website; not a big deal). Not the greatest shop in the world, but the free shipping option is definitely a positive. I hope you get your problem worked out.