[ album ] pichnopop & sketch up ! rec. presents glitters

P*STYLE / DJ NORIKEN
glitters
Happy Hardcore / Electronic Dance
Pichnopop / Sketch Up ! Rec.
****1/2

our featured split album for this week comprises of 11 original tracks by both DJs, with blazing happy hardcore beats and [ delightfully ] dreamy soundscape in reminiscence of the electronic trance music that would serve as a great audio experience in long rides, especially when you got stuck big time in traffic jams. for those who aren't yet familiar with the japanese dojin music scene, the album were primarily made available through online pre-orders and in event such as the bi-annual comiket, and thus you won't find any copies of this album on the shelves of foreign record stores.

now back to our feature album, personally i did not listen much to electronic dance music these days, however glitters is an exclusive exception in which i find the album to be one of the best i had came to listen to in recent times; the music contained within each featured tracks were built upon a well, solid foundation and the overall mood of the record were set just right, and is best listened to very late at night given its mildly-nocturnal atmosphere as made apparent in tracks such as 'sweet and sour', 'conclude' and the title track, 'glitters', three of which were among my fave numbers by p*light [ the latter however were performed alongside dj noriken ].

execution wise, both DJs were at their best here, providing a wide selection of chiefly-delicious samples to go with their heart stomping remixes; the third track off the album 'miss you' especially being a very fine example of this, and not to mention dj noriken had also made a brief detour into aggrotech which can be heard from the harsh-grinding eighth track 'byzantino'. well, to sum it up, glitters had came to provide a highly delightful peek at the japanese electronic [ dojin ] music at its best, and it certainly promises to get you high on electronic dance nirvana the moment you have the music plugged to your ears and senses.

TRACKLIST :
01. Place 2 Place*
02. Sweet and Sour*
03. Miss You*
04. Surreal*
05. strange muzik
06. The Seek of Yourself*
07. Attack to my dream*
08. Byzantino*
09. Conclude ( P*Light Remix )*
10. The Ray of Sunlight ( DJ Noriken Remix )
11. glitters*

[ * +ophanium's pick ]

this entry, it has plugsuits in it :D

[ note : this post here may read the same as this one here so you are free to skip on reading if need be :3 ]

christmas is coming, and speaking of which this would be the second christmas for +ophanium ever since its foundation august last year; personally i have never thought for the blog to last this long [ taking its predecessor 'the cursed maid rhapsody' into account, which died about 4-5 months after being born :3 ] and i am very well proud of myself for being able to keep this one alive enough to see the coming of a new year [ o hai thar 2010 ! ].

looking back at our past entries i've noticed how far we have grown these past few months, despite that we're still in need of megassa improvements especially when it comes to our tl;dr review entries, which i greatly believe to still be lacking in substance and punch. i regret for not taking my past reviews seriously, well what's done is done but good thing is i can always give them few rewrites until i am well satisfied enough :3

i haven't written much on music these days, i admit. and i did get a number of complaint[s] from my IRL friends who had came to read this blog of mine primarily for its music-related content; 'man, where have those music stuff gone ?', 'i want my downloads back' etc. sorry guys, i'll try to write more on music later, but no, the downloads will no longer be here as i would like to avoid them surprise post deletion [ by who knows whos ] which happened thrice here before. also, i may no longer be posting my lulzy political-tasting random entries as i often did before. i find the current domestic political condition to be so uberly disgusting that i dare not dirty this fuwa fuwa blog of mine by writing a few entries on it v.v

oh, and before i forget anything [ should've mentioned this a week earlier ], i am currently a part of the /gf/-based aniblog team hyperchrome, there you might expect to read some not so delicious summaries and commentaries i have made on selected anime series in weekly episodic basis, although i were often lagging behind the rest of the team when it comes to new updates lol.

p/s : it took me quite a while to work on my macross frontier entry, and after few uninspiring / lackluster drafts i decide to stop and postpone the entry instead; perhaps i'll just work on it at a later time :3

let's talk on hime's top five 2009 series

[ note : the following post were re-produced from a similar post i've made for hyperchrome here, albeit the one seen here had been slightly edited to include minor update on the list ]

so before we come to the end of 2009 i would love to share 5 of my most favorite series for the year 2009. i greatly believe that some of you out there might question my taste in anime [ most definitely in regard to the fifth title in the list ] but worry not, i'd care less over that very concern of yours heh; well long story short, here goes the list :D

01. DARKER THAN BLACK : RYUUSEI NO GEMINI
having been a fan of the first series [ kuro no keiyakusha ] i have definitely been looking forward for more adventures of hei and yin upon the revelation concerning on the coming of the second series, especially since the first season were left with an open ending and so much of the crucial questions were yet to be answered. to my surprise, hei started out as a thrice-more bitter character who gradually soften up to the new female lead, the lovely russian-japanese loli cutie [ my new love of the series aside from yin and the late amber ]. all in all, ryuusei no gemini took off on a good and promising start, with a handful of delicious character development ensuing very much later.

02. KIMI NI TODOKE

depending on how it will end, kimi ni todoke is in hold of a greater chance over securing the ultimate favorite seat from ryuusei no gemini and believe me, production i.g. truly delivers this time, and i am very well glad of it. another good example of how a show that were actually being overlooked as the season begins came to be the best. the female center of the story - sadako sawako is deep down adorable, and there is no way for you to feel otherwise than love for her.

03. KUROKAMI
for once the first spot belonged to kurokami, until ryuusei no gemini took over it in an extremely elegant manner. well i personally find kurokami to be so delightfully yummy that it gave me an almost exact sensation i had when i went picking and marathoned ga-rei -zero- earlier this year. the fight / action sequence were so well choreographed it had me wanting for more while plotwise, kurokami tasted like some kind of a spiritual gattai between shakugan no shana and fate/stay night; the series had the same supernatural feel as of SnS and the exact master-servant concept as F/SN, two delicious cake [ albeit the latter wasn't much of a filling treat ] for a price of one, eh ?.

04. TO ARU KAGAKU NO RAILGUN
truthfully speaking, i wasn't quite in favor of the parent series [ to aru majutsu no index ], which i considered as a mixed bag of good and messy [ plot ] stuffed in the same package. that, however doesn't stop me from digging into this one series here as mikoto herself is more than enough reason for me to check this one out, and to my happiness i also get to discover moar love in the form of saten [ who at first glimpse reminds me of the awesome isayama yomi-neesama :D ]. also, +1 on the yuri-get; something that would definitely turn my radar on :D

05. KANAMEMO
at first my thoughts were equally divided between choosing either kanamemo or nyan koi !, yet in the end i've decided to pick on the former as there has already been 3 autumn series occupying the list, and this should at least give enough justice to my list. i know a select mass of anime audience out there find kanamemo to be rather distasteful [ for reasons i am not quite sure of, afraid of being labeled as lolicon or just having hard time to chew on them moe works ? ], still the series had proven to be of a great worth to be listed into my personal viewing experience; what made kanamemo appeal much to my interest is the heartwarming mood it carries and its lighthearted look at the lives of those who were struggling to support themselves through their own hands. not to mention, it has aki toyosaki and rie kugimiya in it :3

p/s : contrary to the image up above, tanya and yoko didn't get to celebrate their christmas this year, and quite possibly, mina as well :3

[ cosplay ] ibara : teana lanster

layer : Ibara
character : Teana Lanster
series : Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS
score : ***1/2

HIME ONLY APPROVE THE TEANA BY IBARA-SAN :E

there should at least be 4 more images to make up our usual cosplay feature post, however this is as much as i can get a hold for ibara-san's teana-get v.v [ the sauce photog - trish-san's blog is no longer accessible by the time i noticed the existence of ibara-san's teana-get ], anyway, the score were originally meant to be a bit biased [ expect somewhere between a **** and a ****1/2 ] for the following two reason; 01. this is a teana cosplay, and she's technically in my waifu top 5 female character of all time and 02. the cosplay above were done by my number one favorite, ibara-san; and by default, i love every single cosplay she had done so far; the same for you kipi / saya / arisa cultist out there :D

despite having set a good one for her teana-get here the overall details on her costumes however doesn't really stand much to my preference compared to her other cosplays; the belt buckle most notably. the barrier jacket looks like they could use some more attention and detailing in execution / making since to me it looks a little bit of undone. her wig matches the original design [ for teana ] perfectly well in its color scheme but the twintails doesn't really stand much, perhaps because of how the bow-or-whatever-it-is-called were applied; my twintails point however does not valid much as this is the only picture of her teana-get i have seen so far; and if you have more of the above cosplay please do share them with me^^

now on to a slightly different note; i am currently planning for a special cosplay edition for +ophanium, and thus for the coming week there will only be streak[s] of cosplay related posts [ the same bandwidth raeping images and the usual, decently crafted commentaries i often write for them ] until the coming of the christmas week where i will cease posting them cosplays and focus on festive-related random entries for a change.