freesia

My first try on Kasumi Arimura hairstyle
 

My first try on Kasumi Arimura hairstyle
 

My first try on Kasumi Arimura hairstyle
 

He stands up when he thinks I'm going to give him food.
 

This is my newly adopted bunny called Momoda.
It's just a coincidence that I got him near Easter.
Anyway, here's Momoda wishing everybun on MH a hoppy Easter Day!
 

My rabbit, Momoda, 3 weeks after haircut
 

Momoda is so cute. Haha~

My rabbit, Momoda, 3 weeks after haircut
 

going out to drink at 1am cuz @Mi'ihen said something that gave me insomnia T_T
 

I really like undying so far, but the two other tracks are giving me stale toxic or beautiful deformity b-side/album filler track feels, malum most guilty of that.

my opinion on this single was just 'adequate';
meaning that it's something what gazette would do. 
nothing less nothing more . 
it's not a perfect single but just enough to impress --- just for a while .
 
my favorite "parts"  were the first few seconds of intro of the 1st track,
and the lovely solo of the 3rd track .
i couldnt ... really get attracted on the whole music itself .
i felt that i could see what's coming ,  a little predictive how gazette's music is .
 
looking forward to their next gen music ! 
 
2/5

Very nice in-depth review Freesia! Really appreciate you taking the time to share some translations on the lyrics.
 
I agree with the posters above.
This single to me felt  like the weakest of the overall 3 releases. Their performance throughout the tracks became too sporadic and I lost interest about 1 minute in for each one.
B-Side tracks for sure.  I am just not a fan of their harder/darker music. Why Ruki continues to dilute his voice while singing is beyond me.
 
I need more time to give this another listen, and immerse myself in their overall message here.  Perhaps hearing them live will achieve this.
For now though, (4/28/16)
 
Edit: After hearing UNDYING live and listening to how well the bands performance was, I was quick to dismiss the quality of their single.
After listening to a bit more, (5/2/16)
 
Edit 2: I can't believe I'm still enjoying this! It sounds just as great as it was a month ago. The entire single just rolls off the ear. Hnggg.
Fanboi -ing again, (5/27/16)

1. UNDYING -
This song didn't really give me a deep impression until reading the lyrics which Ruki wrote.
At first listen, it sounded like the GazettE were trying hard to be heavy and dark but in a good way. Then I had the impression they were trying to put lots of dark and anger elements in one song - the screams, melodic choruses, piano breakdown which gave the song an eerie sadness feeling.
At first line of the lyrics, I realized that this song is a sequel to OMINOUS from their album DOGMA. What Ruki wrote was really heavy, deep, angry, and dark. The line which gave me the most impact was "許されぬ願いに夢を見た", which I can only roughly translate as "Saw my impermissible wish in a dream", because I often dreamt of dreams that I wasn't able to accomplish myself.
 
2. MALUM -
The meaning of this song matches quite well with the music. It's full of anger and hate because the first person character in the lyrics wanted revenge to someone who killed a girl (probably lover) close to him (or maybe her). However, despite of all the hate, Ruki wrote well in the last lines, saying that killing someone back was just emptiness no matter where you went and the reason to live also became was to revenge. This actually reminds me of the morality topic which was raised by several authors in Japan these years, which was about if imprisonment and death penalty was really enough for paying back the death of victims of murderers. (off-topic: Japanese author 東野圭吾 (Higashino Keigo)'s book "虚ろな十字架(Uturonajuuzika)" nailed the topic's contradiction well in his book.)
 
3. VACANT -
This song, as with the lyrics, is less heavy than the other songs in the single. I interpreted that the lyrics of the song was about the emptiness left from a broken relationship. The melody and Ruki's voice flows well throughout the whole song, and the guitar solo gave a sad atmosphere....but that's it. I guess it's a safe song to put into the single as B side.
 
 
Overall:
It's actually been some time since I really tried to delve into Ruki's lyrics and I'm glad I did. It just added lots of meaning and fun while listening to the music.
But then, I'm personally getting a bit tired of their dark music campaign which has gone to a bit elitist feel and  I really miss the old, fun Gazetto times.
Music and lyrics-wise, the is a decent single.

1. UNDYING -
This song didn't really give me a deep impression until reading the lyrics which Ruki wrote.
At first listen, it sounded like the GazettE were trying hard to be heavy and dark but in a good way. Then I had the impression they were trying to put lots of dark and anger elements in one song - the screams, melodic choruses, piano breakdown which gave the song an eerie sadness feeling.
At first line of the lyrics, I realized that this song is a sequel to OMINOUS from their album DOGMA. What Ruki wrote was really heavy, deep, angry, and dark. The line which gave me the most impact was "許されぬ願いに夢を見た", which I can only roughly translate as "Saw my impermissible wish in a dream", because I often dreamt of dreams that I wasn't able to accomplish myself.
 
2. MALUM -
The meaning of this song matches quite well with the music. It's full of anger and hate because the first person character in the lyrics wanted revenge to someone who killed a girl (probably lover) close to him (or maybe her). However, despite of all the hate, Ruki wrote well in the last lines, saying that killing someone back was just emptiness no matter where you went and the reason to live also became was to revenge. This actually reminds me of the morality topic which was raised by several authors in Japan these years, which was about if imprisonment and death penalty was really enough for paying back the death of victims of murderers. (off-topic: Japanese author 東野圭吾 (Higashino Keigo)'s book "虚ろな十字架(Uturonajuuzika)" nailed the topic's contradiction well in his book.)
 
3. VACANT -
This song, as with the lyrics, is less heavy than the other songs in the single. I interpreted that the lyrics of the song was about the emptiness left from a broken relationship. The melody and Ruki's voice flows well throughout the whole song, and the guitar solo gave a sad atmosphere....but that's it. I guess it's a safe song to put into the single as B side.
 
 
Overall:
It's actually been some time since I really tried to delve into Ruki's lyrics and I'm glad I did. It just added lots of meaning and fun while listening to the music.
But then, I'm personally getting a bit tired of their dark music campaign which has gone to a bit elitist feel and  I really miss the old, fun Gazetto times.
Music and lyrics-wise, the is a decent single.

Interesting review of lyrics/music combo!
 
I want to post my thoughts soon too.
For now though,  
Polished and nice sounding, but boring and all over the place.
Pretty accurate track listing though, by the 3rd song I'm checked out.

1. UNDYING -
This song didn't really give me a deep impression until reading the lyrics which Ruki wrote.
At first listen, it sounded like the GazettE were trying hard to be heavy and dark but in a good way. Then I had the impression they were trying to put lots of dark and anger elements in one song - the screams, melodic choruses, piano breakdown which gave the song an eerie sadness feeling.
At first line of the lyrics, I realized that this song is a sequel to OMINOUS from their album DOGMA. What Ruki wrote was really heavy, deep, angry, and dark. The line which gave me the most impact was "許されぬ願いに夢を見た", which I can only roughly translate as "Saw my impermissible wish in a dream", because I often dreamt of dreams that I wasn't able to accomplish myself.
 
2. MALUM -
The meaning of this song matches quite well with the music. It's full of anger and hate because the first person character in the lyrics wanted revenge to someone who killed a girl (probably lover) close to him (or maybe her). However, despite of all the hate, Ruki wrote well in the last lines, saying that killing someone back was just emptiness no matter where you went and the reason to live also became was to revenge. This actually reminds me of the morality topic which was raised by several authors in Japan these years, which was about if imprisonment and death penalty was really enough for paying back the death of victims of murderers. (off-topic: Japanese author 東野圭吾 (Higashino Keigo)'s book "虚ろな十字架(Uturonajuuzika)" nailed the topic's contradiction well in his book.)
 
3. VACANT -
This song, as with the lyrics, is less heavy than the other songs in the single. I interpreted that the lyrics of the song was about the emptiness left from a broken relationship. The melody and Ruki's voice flows well throughout the whole song, and the guitar solo gave a sad atmosphere....but that's it. I guess it's a safe song to put into the single as B side.
 
 
Overall:
It's actually been some time since I really tried to delve into Ruki's lyrics and I'm glad I did. It just added lots of meaning and fun while listening to the music.
But then, I'm personally getting a bit tired of their dark music campaign which has gone to a bit elitist feel and  I really miss the old, fun Gazetto times.
Music and lyrics-wise, the is a decent single.

If there are any questions, constructive criticism, or issues concerning the new skin, layout, and/or board software please leave them here. We will be happy to take a look at them.
Answers to common questions:
We were forced to upgrade. Rolling back to IPS 3.x is not an option. If you see question marks in your profile, this is a result of Japanese or incompatible emojis from IPB 3.x. (noted by @shiroikitsune and @seurong) The forum's wideness is a result of the skin. I have to make some manual adjustments. I reduced the width a bit @DarkWater how is it now? The member tag is replaced with putting the "@" symbol before a member's name. And damn is it convenient! Preview functionality of posts seems to be gone in favor of a WYSIWYG editor. I can't put it back. The rotating banner is back and I know it looks a little funny when you scroll. Also working on that. The banner should work properly now. Custom BBCode is known to be broken. The thumb tag is now obsolete as images can be manually resized. We are looking into other options actively but we will roll with this for a few weeks or so. Various graphical glitches are associated with certain browsers. I don't have an issue with Firefox and Chrome seems to be working alright as well. Colored names are back. YouTube videos should now max out at a width of 640 @Original Saku Max avatar size is 178 x 178. Any larger will break Chameleon Dark.
  "Restoring" View History of Status Updates (as requested by @freesia, probably a useful thing to know)
IPS4 has removed the functionality of seeing all status updates with the button as we are used to. We can use a new tool, called Activities, to replicate this view. I will show you how to do it now. Assuming you are using Chameleon Dark, click "Activity", then "My Activity Streams" and create a new one. Check the uploaded image to see how to configure your settings and then click OK. Status Updates history should now be easily available from this activity.

Technically not my dog, but might as well be.

Peanut, my cousin's mini poodle. Dog sitting him for the next week.

He stands up when he thinks I'm going to give him food.
 

IF ANYONE WANTS BETTER QUALITY!
 
 

He stands up when he thinks I'm going to give him food.
 

Damn! Why not come to Hong Kong as well?! ;____;

I have some thoughts regarding elitism that I thought might be relevant here.
From my perspective, I've come across what I'd personally categorize as two different kinds of elitists. The main thing separating these two would be their motivations.
The first type of elitist I like to call the "psuedo-elitist". For me, this is the most common type. This type of elitist is driven by insecurity. They feel the need to bash and criticize any and everything they don't like in an effort to validate their own tastes. Some of them also make it their mission to learn as much about music as possible and to listen to all of the "objective" music classics - which is nice, but they don't do it for the sake of the knowledge alone - they do it so they can feel like they have a leg up on others. Some of this type are actually really knowledgeable, but unfortunately, they wield that knowledge from an unbalanced place and use it to boost their egos instead of shedding light in a healthy fashion. More often than not, they also lack individuality because they're constantly looking outside of themselves for validation instead allowing themselves to trust and appreciate their own, unique music taste. Most of this kind aren't even aware of themselves, so they end up coming off as assholes - or just looking like clowns to those who can see through them. They're usually troublesome to talk music with because they're too wrapped up in their own egos to properly perform the dance that is conversation.
The second type of elitist probably doesn't even personally identify with the term "elitist" and you'd probably never catch these guys referring to themselves as such. They have discerning tastes and they may be super knowledgeable about music, but they are self-validated and don't look outwards to "objective" standards - they define their own taste, they come up with their own ideas about music, and they completely OWN however they feel about music, regardless of anyone else's opinion. These people understand subjectivity and that their perspective is really not "elite" at all. They're able to seamlessly interface with music fans of all kinds. They're pleasant to talk to because they're more interested in exchanging perspectives, as opposed to trying to force their own opinion on others or prove that their opinion is somehow "right".
Thankfully, the first type can become the second type later on if they wish. I definitely went through a "pseudo-elitist" phase when I was younger, which I'm glad I grew out of.