Kaguya Hime

I've recently watched the anime film, "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" and I wanted to write a review about it.  This film is called "Kaguya-hime no Monogatari" in Japan and was produced in 2013 by Studio Ghibi, which is the same studio that also created films like "Spirited Away" and "The Wind Rises".  This anime was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 87th Academy Awards.  "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" is based on the old folktale called the "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter".  The following is the story behind this folktale:
  

Long, long ago in Japan, there lived a poor woodsman. One day, he was cutting bamboo in a grove when he came upon one stalk of bamboo glowing a bright, golden color. Finding this mysterious, he approached it for a closer look.

 

To his amazement, inside the bamboo was an adorable, tiny little girl. Since the old man and his wife had no children of their own, he decided to bring the child home with him, where he and his wife raised her with love and care. They decided to name her Kaguya Hime. From that time forward, whenever the woodsman went back to work in the grove, gold coins would come pouring out from the bamboo he cut. As a result, the old couple became wealthy.

Amazingly, within just three months Kaguya Hime grew into a beautiful maiden. Her beauty soon became known throughout the country, and one young man after another came forth to ask her hand in marriage. Kaguya Hime refused all of her suitors, but there were five insistent young noblemen who refused to give up. In order to dissuade them, Kaguya Hime asked for a gift from each, and promised to marry the first one to bring her the gift she had requested. But these items were not things that could be found anywhere on this earth, and so the five young noblemen soon lost heart and gave up.

In the meantime the Emperor, who had heard of Kaguya Hime's beauty, also began courting the girl to become his wife and Empress. He too was refused. When the Emperor tried to force Kaguya Hime to come to the palace, she disappeared right before his eyes. The Emperor then realized that there was something unusual about Kaguya Hime, and so he too gave up.

Three years passed and Kaguya Hime became even more beautiful. Then, one spring, Kaguya Hime began to grow melancholy on moonlit nights. She would stare at the moon with tears streaming down her face. The old woodsman, worried, asked what was wrong. Gazing up at the sky, Kaguya Hime replied, "Actually, I come from the moon. I was sent to live on the earth by my King, but now I have been told that I must go home. I will miss everyone here on earth, and that is why I am sad."

The old man was shocked, and not wanting to let his beloved daughter go, consulted with the Emperor to devise a plan. On the night of the full moon, the Emperor's guards hid Kaguya Hime deep inside the woodsman's house and surrounded it. Suddenly, the night sky became bright. Messengers from the moon dressed in brilliant clothes came down from the sky and descended to the earth on a cloud. At this sight, the guards become petrified and lost their courage. The messengers placed Kaguya Hime onto a palanquin and dressed her in a feathered robe. Leaving the heartbroken old couple behind, Kaguya Hime took off to the moon.  The emperor then dispatches an army of soldiers to the tallest mountain in Japan.  The emperor ordered the army to climb to the summit of the great mountain and to burn a letter from the emperor to Kaguya-hime there, with the hope that his message would reach the now distant princess.

The End

This famous folk story is believed to be from the tenth century.  The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is nearly identical in form to a Tibetan tale of a similar name, and some researchers believe that the Japanese legend may have been drawn from the Tibetan one, perhaps through ancient contacts with China.  The beginning of the story, in which a child is given to an old, childless couple, is common among many Japanese folk tales and can also be seen in Issun boshi (the One-Inch Boy) and Momotaro (the Peach Boy).  The theme of a poor old man who suddenly becomes rich is another common among Japanese folk tales.  

  

The film itself was very wonderfully drawn.  The old-style hand drawn anime suits this film because the story itself is very old.  I don't think a new style 3d animation with clean lines would suit this film.  Even though this anime is hand-drawn, the characters in this film show lots of emotion, especially Princess Kaguya, who shows many sides of happiness and sadness.  I think the film not only did a great job in telling the story, but also telling us about the many themes in this film. 

  

I also loved the music in this film.  There is one lullaby that is sung over and over again and it is very catchy.  The reason why I was so interested in this film because one of my favourite Juno Reactor songs is "Kaguya Hime".  Although Juno Reactor's Kaguya Hime would not fit with this anime (it's a bit too dark for this film), the song Kaguya Hime is very interesting because you could almost hear the bamboo playing in it.  There are two spoken verses in Kaguya Hime, one is "Takekara umareta", which means Kaguya Hime was born from the bamboo.  The other verse is "Tsukini kaeranakereba", which means Kaguya Hime must return to the moon.  I really recommend everyone to watch this anime and also check out Juno Reactor's Kaguya Hime.  

My Past BlizzCon Experience

With less than 2 months to go before BlizzCon happens, I wanted to share my past BlizzCon experience with you.  My first BlizzCon was in 2013 and this upcoming BlizzCon will be my third.  I didn't know what to expect when I first attended BlizzCon but boy was I amazed.  When first got to Anaheim, I checked out the venue where BlizzCon was (the Anaheim Convention Center).  I had arrived in Anaheim on Wednesday and on Thursday, I went to Disneyland, which is about 10 minutes away from the convention center.  I was at Disneyland for most of the day until I had to get my BlizzCon badge.  The time to pickup the badge was between 4pm and 9pm so I went there about 5pm but there was already a huge (and I mean HUGE) lineup.  I think it took me about an hour and a half just to get my badge and the goody bag. 

On Friday, I managed to get a pretty good seat for the opening ceremony.  The opening ceremony was very cool, the trailer for the new game Heroes of the Storm was incredible.  After the opening ceremony, I didn't know what really to do.  I looked around for bit and went to the JINX clothing store.  I went to some Diablo panels and got some autographs.

On Saturday, I had a lot more fun.  I decided to bring my Book of Cain and get some more autographs.  I caught some of the Hearthstone matches between Trump, Artosis and Kripparian.  Also, BlizzPro was having their meetup on Saturday and got to meet Reb and Twizz of TwizzCast.  I wanted to meet Archon but he didn't show up :(.  Finally, I went to the Blink 182 concert but it wasn't too good. 

The next BlizzCon (2014) went more smoothly.  First of all, the lineup to get the badge was a lot easier since the convention center was now open between 9am to 9pm.  Instead of going to Disneyland again, I went to the California Adventure park, which is directly across from Disneyland.  On the first day of the 2014 BlizzCon, I did pretty much the same thing as the year before.  The opening ceremony was good, they introduced the new game Overwatch.  I managed to get another shirt from the JINX store, I got more autographs (this time I got a signature from Wyatt Cheng).  I watched the entire quaterfinals of the Hearthstone tournament.  The next day,  I decided to bring my Book of Tyrael and got that signed.  In the Diablo play area, they were giving out prizes for playing Diablo and I managed to get a poster of the Crusader.  I didn't bother attending the Metallica concert because I knew it wouldn't be interesting to me. 

For this upcoming BlizzCon, I am hoping to have another great time.  I am sure they will be showing the trailer for the new Warcraft movie.  I hope Blizzard will announce a new expansion for Diablo 3.  I will probably watch a lot of Hearthstone again.  I don't know if I should go to Disneyland again, I might do something else this year.  It is still kind of hard to decide what to do since Blizzard hasn't announced the schedule of BlizzCon yet.  The main thing with BlizzCon, is that you can't see everything so you have to decide what you want to see and do. 

Working Hard: Season 4 Update

I have been playing Diablo 3 a lot lately.  I had a couple of deaths recently and I am trying to recover from that.  The first monk that I made was lost at level 20 or so.  This wasn't so bad.  My second monk died at paragon level 235.  This wasn't so bad either because I didn't lose any gear that was part of my seven-side-strike gear setup.  My third, though, I lost at paragon 271 and this monk gave me the biggest headache.  Since my third monk died with the gear for the seven-sided-strike, my next monk (my fourth) had to gear up a lot just to get back to the level of my third. 

Even though I had these deaths, my season in Diablo 3 is going good.  I can't really compare with other people's paragon levels since all my paragon levels were done by myself.  I know several people have been grinding their paragon levels through groups and this makes the paragon leveling easier.  I prefer doing my grinding by myself because I like taking the harder road to achieve my goals.  The paragon leveling is much like the auction house debate in the original Diablo 3 game.  Sure you could get all your epic gear through the auction house by sniping items and re-selling items and this made sure you would be geared up pretty quickly.  But there was another option to play the game without the auction house (called self-found) where you would only use items you found yourself and not use the auction house at all.  I played much of the original Diablo 3 game with the auction house but when I switched over to hardcore (the hardcore server didn't have any real money auction house), it was easier to play self-found. 

Other than my paragon levels (which I am currently at 320), I got most of my items cubed (still reaching the goal of 100 items cubed).  I finally found a Flow of Eternity, which is needed for the seven-sided-strike build.  I am looking for another Unity ring (I have one already just need another for my follower) and I am also looking for a Fist of Az'Turrasq.  Right now, I am playing with a Tempest Rush monk so that I won't lose any of seven-sided-strike gear if I die.  The tempest rush monk is pretty fun to play with and it's much easier to farm for items with it.  Anyways, I hope I can continue to improve my monk and get back to doing high greater rifts.  

Juno Reactor - Samurai

Well it's back to school time and I wanted to teach you all about my favourite song, Juno Reactor - Samurai.  When I first heard this song, I knew it was in Japanese (but I didn't understand the lyrics at the time).  Now most songs that I do listen to are not in Japanese so this caught me off guard a little bit.  And since I knew Juno Reactor was a band from England, this didn't make much sense to me, as in how did a band from England write a song in Japanese?  Well as I found out later, Ben Watkins (who is the leader of Juno Reactor) loves Japan and Japanese culture.  I was real fascinated in this since my parents are from Japan and I can kind of speak a little bit myself.  Not only did I like that it was in Japanese but also it has that rhythmic beat that makes you want to dance.  But as I learned to understand the lyrics and the meaning behind this song, this made me more in love with it.

The Lyrics of Samurai
There are many lines of Japanese that are spoken in this song but I'm going to focus mostly on the first line.  The first line in this song is "Anata wa taiyo" which translates to "You are (the) sun".  What this is a metaphor for yourself.  It is not saying that you yourself is the sun but that you are strong like the sun.  So when the lines are spoken, this is telling you that you are strong.  The focus of the sun is often used in other Juno Reactor songs and I will illustrate this in the next section.  The line "You are (the) sun" (also the other lines as well) was also used in a previous Ben Watkins' song (in Sunsonic's Kind of Loving but in English of course).  The other lines of Samurai are similar to the first line.  Each other line starts out as "Anata wa" which means "You are".  So for example the second line "Anata wa hikari" translates to "You are the light".  So in essence, this whole song is used as motivation for someone, telling the listener that he or she is strong.  I often use this song to motivate myself to be strong. 

Focus on the Sun
Juno Reactor has many songs about the sun and Samurai is definitely one of those.  Another song that has "sun" theme to it is Juno Reactor's Solaris.  But Samurai's sun is way different to Solaris' sun.  If you listen to the two songs, Solaris has much slower beat or rhythm (I think Ben described it as if you are sunbathing).  Samurai's beat is more up-tempo, so the sun here is less demanding, more like the sun here in Canada during springtime as opposed to the more heat-intensive sun during the summer.  Not only is the sun a focus in Juno Reactor's songs but also the opposite, the moon.  I saw an interview  Ben did where he talked about how the sun and the moon coming together to form Juno Reactor.  This is interesting because another Juno Reactor song that had Japanese lyrics (Juno Reactor's Kaguya Hime) has a "moon" theme to it.  Kaguya Hime has a very "dark" feel to it's song, much like the darkness of the moon, while again Samurai, which focuses on the sun, is more up-lifting.

The above picture is taken from Samurai's CD (done by Ben's brother I believe).  My dream one day is to go to a Juno Reactor live show and be able to hear Samurai playing.  I was hoping Ben would play this at the Vancouver show but he didn't play it.  If anyone wants to know anything about me, they should listen to this song.