Multi-Sided-Coin

The Legend : Emotion laid bare

2009-08-04T19:02:00.000+08:00

Wow, what a title, I'm amazed myself. But truth to be said ~~and also due to my lack of vocabularies~~ I think the title does the show justice

Superb, nuff' said

The Legend tries to bring us the story of Rama and Sita's fight against Rahwana, yeah I know, it has been done to death before, especially those that came from Bali and or Jogjakarta will probably wonder: what's new? And yet I was surprised.

The show starts with a scene that is storyline-wise supposed to be played in the middle of the story,, that was why when I first watched it (I watched it two times, yes it was that GOOD) I was a bit confused, but then I thought: "maybe they wanted to do a time-skip?". I did not mind if they did decide to, but I was not sure about the other viewers as they might got confused. This first scene was the scene where Sita asked Hanuman to deliver her hair ornament to tell Rama that she was safe. I know a tiny weeny bit of Sunda language, that was why I understood the meaning of this scene. Hooray me =D

It was a brilliant choice of opening scene, what made it brilliant was the fact that this was the scene where Sita was shining at her best, the feeling of longing for her husband Rama could really be seen through her act here. ~~wow I just spoke like a true movie critics XD~~

No photographs were allowed to be taken, sorry

The second scene was the true beginning of the show. We were introduced to the kingdom of Ayodya, where the king then further introduced us to his 4 sons, Baratha, Lakshmana, Rama and another which I couldnt catch his name XD. This was also a much enjoyable scene, as those 4 sons were depicted to have different personalities, we were given a taste of that through the dances that those 4 performed. And my, what a dance it was, when they were performing individually, we could really see the differences between them, the strong Baratha, the chivalrous Lakshmana, the graceful Rama and the intellect I-couldn't-catch-his-name (sorry XD). The scene ends with Rama, Laksmana, and Sita get exiled form the kingdom. The reason being, Keikeiyi, the queen to the throne, forced that decision to be taken.

actually today I came with the intention of writing something like a review to every scenes so that you ~~unlucky~~ people that couldn't come could at least imagine the show, but right before this scene, I said to myself: "screw it, I'm just going to enjoy it!", the show was that good to me that I thought dividing my attention was the same as disrespecting it

After that the setting changed to the forest where the three got exiled into, they teased us viewers by showing somewhat of 'love dance?' ~~(you lewd people, it was not THAT kind of love dance!~~ between Rama and Sita, where suddenly, Shupanakha, the sister of Rahwana came and tried to separate Rama and Sita. She almost succeeded, but thankfully, Lakshmana came to the rescue!

trusty and strong, lakshmana

I LOVE LAKSHMANA, not only he danced like a true balinese dancer he was, he was really immersed to his character, and btw, after Lakshmana rescued them we could see a little fight between Rama and Sita, Sita became angry because Rama was able to be seduced, in short she was jealous

Sometimes later, back to the forest again, suddenly there were three golden deer, and our main heroes& heroine were shown to be happily playing with them.

Sita loves them

Gigi here was so damn adorable!! Remember in last note where I wrote that she transformed into a 17 years old girl? This was the scene. D*MN she was really adorable I almost jumped from my chair

Sita then asked Rama to catch one of the deers, Rama agreed, then as he was no longer visible, suddenly we heard a scream that sounded like it came from Rama. Worried that something might happen to Rama, she ordered Lakshmana to find him without listening to Lakshmana's hunch that the scream might not came from Rama.

Now I know why Asian women are the best! XD

Cute yet demanding, get jealous easily yet loved her lover deepily, NO MEN wouldn't fall for Sita, I can vouch for that

THE CAST

1. Rama (Khairul Shahrin)
The main hero, Rama was depicted as super powerful and yet graceful. Graceful, seen at first through the many jumps that he did on the introduction scene. On the first day of performance, I did not quite like his dance, aside from the fact that I was already all fanboy over Rakhwana, I just did not like how he stayed all graceful till the end of the show, he was supposed to be fighting for his lover, yet he still looked composed?
That aside, I did not mean that his dance was bad, it was very good, heck the day I'll be able to dance half as good as him will be the day I'm having my 6th grandchildren.

2. Sita (Gianti Giadi)
Me praising her again here will be unfair to the other casts <3

3. Laksmana (Putu Arif Mahendra)
Superb dance. If you ask me,dance-wise he was better than Rama and *gasp* might be better than Gigi. Awesome right, imagine a show where there were dancers that even better than Gigi performing together. You'd cry blood if you knew how awesome of a show that you actually had missed

4. Rakhwana (I Nyoman Budi Artha)
The man of the show, he really did show us what a powerful creature Rakhwana was just through his presence alone. He might not showed us the crazy movements done by the other casts, yet his...aura was undeniably overwhelming, this is not to say that he overshadowed the other casts, any scene, and I said ANY scene in which Rakhwana was involved was strangely where the other casts were able to shine the most. Jatayu, Sita, Lakshmana, Vibishana and many others that I cant mention here, they owed Rakhwana for bringing the best in them.

Wew, that's it.
Sorry for not writing something longer, I need to control myself for not writing too much XD

If you want to read the continuation of the story that I wrote in the previous note, ask me for the booklet of the show.

Final Words: A very good show, I'd bring you to another world. I still remember how I was all smiling after watching it the first time and how I was all absent-minded, jaywalked till halfway to the bus station after watching it for the second time. Wew, thanks God that no car ran me over XD

Mangas you might want to read... (in no particular order)

2009-07-23T01:15:00.017+08:00

1. Orange Yane no Chiisana Ie

Genre: romance, drama, slice of life, comedy

A man comes home one day to have his wife give him divorce papers. A woman comes home to her apartment one day to find a woman she doesn’t know wrapped in a towel coming out of the shower. They both get conned by the same real estate conman on the same house, a 4LDK. So now the man, his two sons, the woman, and her two daughters live in the same house. (Source: mangaupdates.com)

Indra's score: 7

Vinland Saga

Genre: adventure, historical

Thorfinn is a young viking whose father was killed when he was young by a viking captain called Askeladd. After many years, Thorfinn has joined Askeladd's crew to take revenge on him while conquering territories in Northen Europe.

Indra's score: 9

Historie

genre: historical, adventure

Historie takes place in ancient Greece and follows the life of Eumenes and his childhood, who would later in his life grow up to be the secretary and general to Alexander the Great.

Indra's score: 8

The World God Only Knows

Genre: romance, school-life, comedy

Katsuragi Keima is known on the net as the god of getting the girls while in real life he’s known as otamegane and he hates all real girls. However he is approached by Erushii, a devil from hell, to help her in catching runaway spirits that hide in people. Apparently the spirits only hide in the hearts of girls and the only way to get the souls out is by making the girl fall in love so the spirit gets forced out. And he’s not allowed to fail or he will lose his head.
(Source: Mangaupdates)

Indra's score: 8

Unbalance Unbalance

Genre: Romance, Drama

A young man finds and returns a lost wallet and cell phone to a beautiful young lady, thus begins the destined relationship between two strangers. Sound typical? Well then, how about making the young lady the young man’s future homeroom teacher, and give them both a twisted sense of right and wrong. And just for kicks, let’s have the young man help himself to a self proclaimed reward from the lost wallet before returning it… but of course, this scenario wouldn’t be complete unless the young lady was very unforgiving when it came to teaching one of her students a lesson on morals. (Source: Infinity Studios)

Indra's score: 9

Bloody Monday

genre:Shonen

A virus deal clinched in Russia on the Christmas eve. Purpose: unknown. Two clues: a mysterious lady "Maya", one of the gangsters, and "Bloody Monday", the keyword for the project.

Then an incident happened in far-distant city of Tokyo. Fujimaru Takagi, a second grade student at Mishiro Gakuin high school, is commissioned to find out the truth by Public Security Investigation Bureau for his great ability as a super hacker. Now, Maya, approaching to Fujimaru, as his high school teacher... (Source: Gievmoar)

Indra's score: 8

Team Medical Dragon

genre: drama

Team Medical Dragon focuses around a genius surgeon, Asada Ryutaro, who's methods have made him a bit of a renegade in the eyes of Japanese doctors. The manga exposes the "illness" of the Japanese hospitals and how their system is not designed to care for the patient.

The manga is appropriate for mature audiences and contains blood, nudity, harsh language, and sex. (Source: mangaupdates)

Indra's score:8

Alive: The Final Evolution

Genre: adventure

Taisuke Kanou is your average 16-year-old student. He has two close friends, Hirose and Megumi. Hirose has trouble with bullies, but Taisuke is always their to defend him, even though he just winds up getting beaten instead of Hirose. During class one day, Taisuke is hit by something unworldly and for that split second, he sees a vision of the universe. As he's walking home from school, he sees a girl fall and die if front of him, but his first thought is jealousy. He later finds out that the strange sensation that hit him is spreading throughout Japan. Those who are struck by it either commit suicide or "evolve," but the comrades have evolve usually have dark intentions for the rest of the world. (Source:ANN)

Indra's score: 9

Romance in anime : Phantom

2009-07-23T00:04:00.016+08:00

How I want to be greeted like that...

Wow, it has been 3 months since I last wrote a post, haha lazy me, anyways here I am going to try my hands on writing some words about one of the anime I've been watching: Phantom ~Requiem of the Phantom~

Summary from MAL:

A spate of mafia assassinations occurs in America, the work of the mysterious organization named Inferno. "Phantom" is their strongest and capable assassin, however a lone tourist witnesses Phantom's latest act of murder. He unwittingly exposes the top assassin's true identity, a young girl named Ein. Witnesses are usually killed, but the man is captured and taken to be brainwashed into "Zwei", Inferno's newest assassin, with no memory of who he is. From this point on, Zwei is drawn into a world of conspiracy, deceit and violence.
(Source: ANN)

Yeah, it is not an anime that fully revolves around the romance of the main characters, this is also not one of those light-hearted comedy harem anime where u'll be either laughing because of the stupidity of the characters (Seto no Hanayome) or oggling at the character design, this is insted a very dark and depressing anime that not everyone I am sure to be fond of.

Regardless, I am very pleased to see that the romance in this anime is very very well done, first lets talk about the main characters:

Zwei

The main protagonist, which is a Japanese that by some horrible bad luck, caught by Inferno, brainwashed and turned into a killing machine, what I like about this guy is that when he learned about the situation he was in, he did not go all depressed or anything but instead quickly adapted himself to it, which is nice to see because sometimes a character that is too emosional is not much fun to see, but it is not too say that he does not feel doubt about killing, especially when innocence people are involved

Ein

Zwei's instructor. She was the one that taught Zwei the A to Z about art of killing, so do not let the picture here fools you, in no way she is a cheerful, happy-go-lucky, innocent type of girl, she is actually, for the lack of better words, a doll. After becoming an assassin for who knows how long she had been, she became lacking of any personalities and any desires.

Cal Devens

For the sake of avoiding spoilers let's just say that somehow she ended up living together with Zwei atm.

So what about the romance? Well the first picture of this post already shows us what we can expect from this anime. One of the pairings which we can sure to see is Ein X Zwei, because the anime is still ongoing I dont want to speculate on how the romance between the Zwei and Cal (although I am cheering for them ^^). Zwei, being unable to turn completely heartless, gave doubts to Ein about this whole assassin lifestyle, so in short the interactions can be summarized to Zwei trying to bring Ein back to normal human's 'lifestyle' but met by a resistance from her because to her this assassin lifestyle is already her 'way of life/existance'

I'd rather eat you instead...haha

As for Zwei X Cal, the relation between them is the opposite. Zwei here plays the role of the teacher, teaching Cal the art of assasination. We will also see that Cal will play the role that Zwei played earlier, she now will be the one pulling Zwei to 'normal human's world'.

......

Argh, so many that I wanted to write, but because I dont want to spoiler anything right now I cant do much, oh well...

anyway sorry if the style of writing is too stiff, I'll try to loosen up in my next posts

Shikabane Hime: Aka

2009-01-11T17:21:00.003+08:00

Anime yang agak bagus,

Nilai Plus:

>Storylinenya ketebak tapi bagus

>Karakter2nya likeable

Nilai minus:

>Useless fanservices here and there

>Cant help but to notice there are several dialogues that feel out of place