I didn't make this newspost earlier this month since I've been pretty busy, finishing up a month of summer classes, and going on vacation to the mountains. Sadly, my trip to the mountains was filled with clouds, clouds, and even more clouds, so we didn't really get to do much; however, the clouds did look pretty cool when you're at a higher altitude than them, or right next to one. I tried to get some decent pictures - here's one with a cloud at a lower elevation
Audio Corner
What is J'Rob listening to?
I've been listening to a lot of Meshuggah as of late; they're a really heavy metal band that uses pretty complex rhythms, and sometimes even sound like the metal version of Allan Holdsworth. I really love their second album, Destroy Erase Improve, and their most recent album, Koloss.
Gaming Corner
What is J'Rob playing?
Team Fortress 2
Weeaboo Corner
Hey guys, guess what.
I'm taking fucking JAPANESE.
Hell yea, ばか
MAXIMUM WEEB
What anime is J'Rob watching?
Torafedora
It's just some average, generic high school romcom. 0/10 fucking dropped wouldn't watch again.
Basically, the anime is about a guy who looks like a yakuza member meets the delinquent girl of the school, Aisaka Taiga (nicknamed the palmtop tiger). They inform each other who their love interest is, and try to help the other. One issue I had with this anime was that the protagonist looking like a yakuza member plays practically no role in the series other than for comic relief at a couple points. Overall I'd give it about an 8-9 out of 10.
Taiga of course best girl
Gurren Lagann
Still can't believe how late I am to this one - although I'm kind of glad i didn't start watching this until after watching Kill la Kill, since it outshines KLK.
I never did show off my Emperor CD's that I got recently on here, did I? Well, here they are:
And Ihsahn:
I think I may as well say Emperor is my favorite band now. They're practically the perfect mix of Black Metal and Progressive Metal (progressive mostly on Prometheus, their best album, in my opinion), and I really like more progressive music.
Current works-in-progress:
I don't really have too much I'm working on right now. I just recently released something I started working on in late June and finished in about a week on here:
Other than that, I'm currently finishing up a sequel to my second A.I.M. piece from this year. Expect to see it soon.
Gaming Corner
What games is J'Rob playing?
Well, after the Steam Summer Sale 2014 event made a dent in my wallet, I have acquired about 25 or so new games, went up about 25 steam levels (and of course badges and trading cards), and from the badge crafts to gain those levels, emoticons, backgrounds, n' shit. A couple notable games I picked up are:
Agarest: Generations of War Zero (weeb game with waifus)
Castle Crashers
Chantelise (another weeb game)
Killing Floor
The Portal games
TF2:
I've been playing a lot of TF2 as of late; I've switched around playing different classes, playing a lot of one for a while, then going to another. I've learned how to properly play the team medic, trying to keep the ENTIRE TEAM healed, and making sure the WHOLE TEAM IS OVERHEALED SOMEWHAT at the start of the round, so that they can absorb the first push much easier so that the engineers have more time to set-up and whatnot. Pro-tip: don't be the idiot medic that sticks to the heavy the entire game, ignoring when your teammates call for aid - your team will do a lot worse when you do that.
I've also been playing soldier alot recently. I've been working my way towards getting a Hale's Own (standard) Rocket Launcher and Concheror. Currently, I'm at 1738 kills on the rocket launcher (Rage-Inducing Killstreak Rocket Launcher), and 553 uses on the Concheror (Wicked Nasty Concheror) - it'll be some time before they're Hale's Own. I play more of a support soldier (but still somewhat offensive, since I don't use the Fag Box, which is better when running one of the other buff horns), but I usually end up being on the front line, so I use the stock (the strange killstreak one) rocket launcher.
Also, @nor is jealous of all my lucky cosmetic drops >:D (nor gets a mention :3)
Weeaboo Corner
I have ALOT to talk about anime-related. So much that I'm really going to hate the fucking 20 image cap.
Probably should've been in the Gaming Corner
but fuck it. I mentioned that I got Agarest: Generations of War Zero in the Steam Summer Sale. That is a prequel to the game I've been playing recently, Agarest: Generations of War. The game is basically about a war stretched over a couple generations, and at the end of each generation, you pick one of three female characters to waifu, which will determine the protagonist of the next generation. haven't gotten too far yet, but what I can tell you is that ELLIS IS FUCKING GOING TO BE FIRST WAIFU
Ok, so it turns out that Ellis isn't waifu-able...proving the most annoying law of the cosmos that best girl can never win (defied only by Inaba Himeko and who knows what select few) once again. Babies are going to be flipped because of this. So my second choice after her is:
Luana
I'm still pissed that best girl can't win, though.
What anime is J'Rob watching?
"Nagi no Asukara"
THIS GETS TOP MENTION BECAUSE I POSTED THIS ON MIUNA MONDAY
I finished this one a week ago...I FUCKING LOVED IT - 10/10 ANIME. It also has best girl, Shiodome Miuna:
And don't forget Mukaido Manaka ʘ‿ʘ
10:10 PM - [ClantagsAreGay] Nor: ʘ‿ʘ
10:10 PM - [ClantagsAreGay] Nor: le manaka face
ʘ‿ʘ ʘ‿ʘ ʘ‿ʘ ʘ‿ʘ ʘ‿ʘ
(this post is no longer lacking in Mukaido Manaka, and now you know what that spam was all about)
This is a rather difficult anime to sum up; four middle school students from one of the sea villages have to go to school on shore since their middle school underwater was closed. The people from the sea and the land don't quite get along too well at the start. Season 2 takes place a couple years in the future, and I can't really say much more without spoiling the anime too much.
Also, there's a ritual to the sea god that plays a vital role throughout the series.
"Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica"
This anime is the epitome of the statement "don't judge a book by it's cover." I originally stayed away from this one because >mahou shoujo, but after watching the series, I realized how bad of an idea that was, and will likely never not at least give an anime a chance before completely writing it off as being bad, especially after recently finishing the Rebellion movie.
Trust me - just watch it. It's a 10/10 masterpiece of an anime.
>pics related
"Neon Genesis Evangelion"
Sevkat kept telling me I needed to watch this one, so I did. It's also a rather old anime (mid-90's). I really liked it, save for episodes 25 and 26 (the ending of the series is a notorious mindfuck). I also avoided this one for a while because >mechas. This isn't anything like Gundam or the sort at all; the basis of the story is that humans are under attack from a mysterious enemy called "angels," which are incredibly large, and can cause large amounts of destruction while being protected by a forcefield referred to as the "AT field." To combat the angels, the evas were built, which are about the same size as most of the angels, and have weapons that can penetrate the angels' AT fields; the evas are piloted by children at the age of 14, who are the main characters of the series. Overall, this is your basic 10/10 weebcore right here (you don't really have to be weeb to watch this - this isn't one of those "hide your powerlevel" animes).
I'll add more about other anime/manga series I'm currently watching/reading later since I'd like to have this up before Miuna Monday is over.
That about wraps up this month's newspost. Now here's some obsure music I listen to:
Some weeb music, too:
(don't mind the Spanish subs on this one - it's the highest quality embeddable one I could find)
I don't feel like writing up a newspost right now since I've got a chemistry exam in a couple hours, and I'm actually doing something I don't usually do - studying - since this is a bit more difficult than the level of chemistry I took last semester; so here's a placeholder post.
Final Exams
Chemistry II
Not taken yet
And here's an image of Chitoge since Nor likes Kosaki more >:)
My second semester in college is wrapping up, and exam week is a little less than a month away. Thankfully, I'm not getting completely bombarded with homework and shit like the end of last semester (meaning more time to work on my AIM contest songs).
Audio Corner
A.I.M. Contest
I've already submitted one song for the Art-Inspired Music contest:
I've already finished the second one...sort of. I originally wanted to put a violin part in it, but I've been having trouble finding a reliable microphone to record it with, as my university has apparently repurposed its only recording studio on the campus (which was free for students to use). If I can't get a violin in there before the deadline, I'll just use the synth I originally had play the melody instead - I'll upload it anyway, though, and will change it if I can record.
EDIT 4/10/2014 @ 4:22 PM: I went and submitted my second song to the contest - here it is:
Soundcloud
Here's another song made using a Pokémon soundfont I uploaded to Soundcloud:
Weeaboo Corner
What manga is J'Rob reading?
"Crepuscule"
This is an interesting one; it actually isn't exactly a manga - it's a manhwa (which is basically the Korean equivalent). For any of those who have read/watched Rosario + Vampire, it's somewhat similar in a way. The main character is a human brought into a world that is only made up of humanoid monsters (vampires, succubi, and such), and has to avoid letting people find out (though a couple people do know, but help him hide it). The main character Lark was treated as an outcast in the human world because of his red eyes (which only "monsters" had); the son of a noble from the other world, Setz, goes over to the other world to explore and ends up meeting Lark. Setz offers to take Lark to his world to escape the torment from people who call Lark a "monster." The inhabitants of the other world (Crepuscule) all have red eyes, so the main character being human isn't easy to detect (there's more technicalities involved, but that's the most noticeable trait). I've gotten caught up to the latest chapter within a week; so far I'd rate it a 9.5/10.
Also - motherfuckin' Seere
What anime is J'Rob watching?
"Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren"
So, the second season of Chuunibyou has ended. Honestly, I wasn't too happy with the ending. The season as a whole was pretty good; but, if they don't have a season 3 coming after that ending, I'm gonna be pretty pissed. I still rate it a 10/10, though.
I swear, if there's a season three, this will become a pairing
There wasn't enough of this
and I'm still not happy that this didn't actually happen
Kumin's the best in the series, though
"K-On!"
So I was wrong about this - there still is more, and episodes 25-27 aren't just special episodes; that and there is a movie (which I'll find a time to watch). I actually recommend watching this - it's pretty good at laying the feels down hard towards the end.
Also, Yui is the best
And if you don't like it
"Kill la Kill"
I'm pretty sure that anyone who is at least somewhat into anime will know about this one; it ended last month and there's a whole ton of discussion (and flame wars) about it on 4chan /a/. I thought it was really good overall; the ending could've been better (along with the whole second season - I heard the entire script for it was re-written a couple times).
Also,
I SO CALLED THAT MAKOXRYUUKO PAIRING. I FUKKEN CALLED IT. I saw it coming from halfway into the first season.
Jakuzure Nonon is the best, though
And here's a music video
That's all I'm going to post for now - I've put making this newspost off for too long.
A bit more delayed than I'd like, but at least I got to posting it. I have a lot more weeaboo shit to ramble on about this time...
Audio Corner
Current Works-in-Progress
I currently have a terribly huge amount of unfinished, half-done, not yet mastered, and/or short themes/song ideas on the backburner. I'll get around to finishing up some projects eventually. As for new stuff I might work on, I'm considering making more 8-bit music - maybe even a soundtrack's worth of it since it's pretty fun to make, and relatively easy at that. I'm also thinking of trying my hand at the A.I.M. contest this year; I'll start looking for some good art in the portal.
New Skills - Guitar
Over the past couple months, I have been picking up on playing guitar (I've only really had a chance to play on an acoustic). I've figured out a couple parts of some easier songs like Johnny Cash's cover of Rusty Cage, Eric Clapton's Cocaine, Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water (and I can see why people say it's the first song rock guitarists learn to play), etc. I also got the entire rhythm guitar part for Avenged Sevenfold's Hail to the King down (inb4 "pleb" - fuck you, it's fun to play). Now that I have a better understanding of the instrument, I can do a better job at implementing it into my music (and make tabs in the case of a collaboration).
Soundcloud
I finally made a "throw-away" Soundcloud account to upload songs I made using soundfonts to avoid having any issues directly affect this account here. Here's my first upload:
Here's the original 8-bit track from my audio submissions:
The Weeaboo Corner
What anime is J'Rob watching?
"Kill la Kill"
A while back, I started watching Kill la Kill...I was hooked fast. Bocodamondo's fan-art of the series somewhat piqued my interest in the show. I watched the first episode and was immediately hooked, and as of now, I am caught up and waiting for the next episode to come out.
Without spoiling anything, basically, the show is about a corrupt seitokai (student council) that uses and distributes special uniforms containing "life fibers" that enhance human strength and other capabilities to its members and to club presidents and members. The higher-ups have uniforms with a higher percentage of life fibers (ranked by stars - 3-star uniforms having the highest percentage and the strongest, and "no stars" which are students without the special uniforms), the club presidents have 2-star uniforms, members have 1-star uniforms, and the lower-class and poor students don't have the special uniforms (how well the students do in the school determine their wealth class and uniform level). Matoi Ryuuko is out to avenge her father's death with half of a massive scissor blade designed to cut life fibers (that was used to kill him) and challenges the head of the seitokai knowing she (Kiryuin Satsuki) is somehow connected to his death. The show has a very cartoonish visual style and is quite a breath of fresh air from a lot of the mediocrity and cookie-cutter animes/mangas I've seen. As of right now, I would rate it a 10/10.
Matoi Ryuuko pictures, just because:
"Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren"
I mentioned this one my last post last month. It's still ongoing, and it's still really good. I definitely recommend watching it even if you don't like shounen high school romance.
"Nisekoi"
Yet another shounen high school romance. I've been reading the manga, which is still ongoing (thanks to the unnecessary amounts of filler that they have started to put out - the main plot just fizzled out somewhere around chapter 20-ish if I recall correctly), and happened to see that there was an anime of it that's about 9 episodes in so far. The anime is about a high school student named Ichijou Raku who is the son of a Yakuza boss, and the city faces a possible disaster because of a rivalry between the particular Yakuza faction his dad runs and a gang called Beehive. The leaders of both sides of the rivalry had been good friends for a long time and wished to avoid a large-scale battle between both factions, and Raku's father and the leader of Beehive try to push him and Beehive's leader's daughter into a fake boyfriend-girlfriend relationship (the members being kept ignorant of the lack of authenticity in the relationship) to keep fighting from breaking out. It seems a bit mediocre in terms of visuals (they seem to love centering characters a lot like a dating sim - not that I've played any myself, mind you), and tend to be really lazy with the background. The opening is addictive as hell, though. Overall, I'd give the anime a rating of 6.5/10 (the manga a 7.5/10), and I wouldn't recommend watching it if you aren't a fan of the genre.
"K-On!"
So I finished this series...
Ok, so I liked it, but...but it's just...WHY IS IT TAGGED AS SEINEN??? That and the ending irked me somewhat; it just didn't have enough closure. It was kind of like watching the real ending of Mirai Nikki (the Redial OVA) - it's a "happy ending" that just doesn't quite give a feel of completeness (like what happens to the light music club the next year? Do Ui and Jun join it?); I might need to watch the special episodes, though. I have no idea what to rate this and whether to recommend it or not...
"Log Horizon"
Nor recommended this one to me; I've watched the first episode and it seems rather interesting, but it has a very similar setup to Sword Art Online in that the characters are stuck inside a virtual-reality MMORPG. I'll watch a couple more episodes and then see what I think of it then. The visuals look nice.
Here's a music video of a song that I've been listening to a lot recently:
(the audio quality of the video is shite compared to the quality of the actual song)
That about wraps it up for this month.
I swear I'm slowly becoming more and more weeaboo-ish the longer I spend on this site...
So, I might try to make one of these every month from now on. Hopefully I'll have enough to talk about next month.
To get enough content in and to make these look cleaner and more appealing to the eye, I'm going to split these posts into sections called "corners" like the "Audio Corner," for example.
Audio Corner
Soundcloud?
I got a hold of one of the Pokemon soundfonts awhile back and remixed some of my songs that were originally written to emulate the style of the soundtracks from the games, but there are certain copyright issues keeping me from uploading any of it here since the soundfont is (I believe) a direct rip from the games. I haven't tried uploading any of the songs using the soundfont here, nor will I try as I would like to avoid having any issues with this account. So I might make a "throw-away" Soundcloud account to upload the songs just so that a few of you who could care can hear them.
Current works-in-progress
I'm working on remastering and finishing up some songs for my first album making use of FL Studio, Celestial Ambience. I've uploaded two abridged versions of songs that will be on there to my account here - for example:
which will be slightly longer. I'm pushing for an 11 song album, which I'm planning to use as a standard for album lengths.
I'm also still doing a collaboration with LichLord on an Industrial song that was sort of an homage to his style; his part of the collab is dealing with vocals and the production end. Once he's content with a vocal recording that he feels is final product worthy, the song should be ready for uploading here.
The Gaming Corner
What is J'Rob playing?
So, I finally got Skyrim via Steam back in late December during all the sales (I picked up the Legendary Edition since it was 66% off)...I used to think it wouldn't be that fun of a game to play, but then...lesson learned: don't think - try it. (You thought I was going to make an "arrow to the knee" joke, didn't you?)
Needless to say, I'm now level 75 with Dragon Armor. Once I hit about level 51, I had maxed out my Smithing and Block, and almost maxed out my Heavy Armor; after making a set of Dragon Armor and weapons, I proceeded to level grind using giants, making my Heavy Armor and Block legendary a couple times. As for major questlines, I've beaten the main quest with the dragons, the civil war quest (supporting the Stormcloak side), and the Dragonborn DLC quest. I'm currently working on the Thieves' Guild questline and whatever questline the Dragon Cult masks are part of (which includes one of the Mages' College quests).
The Weeaboo Corner
(Yes, I am doing a Weeaboo Corner.)
Probably should've been in the Gaming Corner,
but fuck it. During the Steam Summer Sales, I downloaded the game Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. It's basically an RPG where you have to run a shop to pay off a massive debt, and to get stuff to sale, you have to buy from wholesalers, hire an "Adventurer" to fight through dungeons for items to sale, or haggle prices from customers who want to sell stuff to you. The reason why this isn't in the Gaming Corner is because the characters are basically drawn in the manga/anime style, and the dialogue, story content is very anime-esque (it's also very moe). I'm currently only about 2 hours in for gameplay time and it seems pretty fun to play.
>Pic related
What anime is J'Rob watching?
Currently, Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! is in the second season (Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai! Ren) and I'm caught up with the current episode (as of right now, it's at the fourth episode, and new episodes air every Wednesday, and unofficial translation teams put out subtitles within 24 hours). So far I'm liking the new season (episode 4 was filler, though...but still okay). I recommend this anime (I'd give it a 8/10).
>gif related
I'm also going through the second season of K-On!...and I have no idea why...
Don't get me wrong - it's pretty good and I'm liking it...but why did I start watching this again? It's about a "light music" club, so I can relate to the music stuff in there, but it focuses more on the daily lives of the club members, who are all high school shoolgirls. So my question is, "how the fuck does this have the 'seinen' tag?" The artstyle definitely isn't anywhere close to the shitty shoujo anime/manga style, but how is it even seinen? Despite that, I'd also give this series a solid 8/10 rating.
>pic related
Well, that's about all I'm going to do for a newspost this month.
It's that time already. I've had a shit ton of, well, shit to turn in, and some more shit to finish and turn in - even when finals are going on. After all this shit is over with, I can finally have a good break with some time to make music and dick around.
Ugh.
What to expect soon:
Collab - LichLord is handling vocals and the production side of an Industrial song I put together a while back - he already did a remaster of the track and it sounded amazing compared to the raw FL master when I sent it over
More thematic music is coming
I've put off the making of my second album (first using FL Studio), Celestial Ambience, for too long - it needs mastering work, and three of the songs remain unfinished
More 8-bit music? My first 8-bit submission here has received a pretty positive response so I might make some more
Vocal work? I have a couple NG songs I have remixed and am in the process of remixing that have vocal sections, but I don't have a mic for recording purposes. There is a recording studio in one of the buildings on campus, but I haven't really had a decent time to go and record something there (plus it's been a couple years since I've made use of my voice, so I'm a bit rusty and have a hard time getting out of the bass range - I know I can reach up fairly high, but I need to get back to practicing). One of the original songs I have on the backburner in need of vocal work is Nox Aeterna.
Final Fantasy remixes - yes, I have some in the works in need of mastering
Did I forget to mention how much I love this new blog update?
Anyways, on to the finals:
Round 1: Calculus
HOLY SHIT, COULD THIS HAVE BEEN ANY EASIER. Seriously - the test was scheduled to be 3 hours in length and separated into 3 parts, a non-calculator multiple choice part, a calculator multiple choice part, and a calculator free response part; after finishing a section, we could go to the next after turning the papers for that section (we couldn't use our calculators until 9:00 AM, which was the cutoff for the first section). I finished the first section in a little under half an hour, got the second section, finished all but two answers without a calculator, and guess-timated the last two; when it hit 9:00 I checked the two guessed answers with the calculator and one of them was right. I turned that in, then got section three done in a little less than a half hour. I got back to my dorm about an hour and a half before the test was scheduled to be over. (At the time of typing this, 45 minutes remained until the test was over - just for reference)
Seriously, too easy. The maximum I probably missed on that was one or two questions - if I even did, which I'm pretty sure I didn't.
Now bring on round 2, Engineering. (This might be an interesting one...probably will be mostly easy; they might throw in some jank questions, though)
Round 2: Engineering
Went exactly as I expected it to. Mostly easy and there were two questions that had issues. The two problematic questions were multiple choice questions for which none of the possible answers were correct...well sort of. The answer for the first of the two was the answer to what the next one should have been, but the question and answers were mixed up - the answer set for the first one was supposed to be the answer set for the next question, and I have no idea what the answer set for the second problematic question was for. I went through the math about six or seven times, wrote down the entire process, and told my instructor and the teaching assistant that there were issues with the two questions.
Next up is Chemistry. I should be mostly good up to about the last section. As long as they don't have any questions with ridiculously complicated Lewis structures and formal charge minimalization, this should be fairly easy.
Round 3: Chemistry
Mostly easy with a couple iffy questions. One really shitty one (the last one) where we had to draw two possible lewis structures of XeCl2F2 - a polar structure and a nonpolar one. I just drew two random structures and turned it in.
Next up: English
Round 4: English
We don't have to show up for this since the exam is an e-portfolio which we have to submit electronically.
On to LBST. All we have to do for this one is remember and identify three songs - Chopin's Nocturne in F Sharp (going to be an easy one since http://jrob.newgrounds.com/favorites/ > "Other Favorites"), Tchaikovsky's Overture from Romeo and Juliet, and some stereotypical opera song (the ones with the really annoying sounding female opera singers who use TOO MUCH FUCKING VIBRATO) from an opera about an American lieutenant who marries a geisha in a Japanese traditional marriage just to have sex with her and then leaves her to go back to America.
Basically, it's going to be easy.
Round 5: Arts & Society: Music
In the most literal form imaginable.
Well it's almost over. Just gotta get this damned e-portfolio done for English and I'm good for this semester.
Well, it's that time; I'm moving into my dorm this Friday and starting classes on Monday. I've already made my own copy of my schedule that's much more pleasing to look at; no Friday classes, though I wish I could have put my mandatory LBST (Liberal Studies - it's not even relevant to my course of study) on Friday to alleviate my Monday class load (seriously, the only option I had for this class was 6:30 - 9:15 P.M. - P TO THE FUCKING M. IN THE EVENING...at least I was able to choose Arts and Society: Music for my first year LBST to make it at least bearable).
Anyways, I'm doing a Mechanical Engineering and Physics double major, two intense and challenging math & science heavy majors that will most likely eat away a good portion of my free time (normally they say students should study 2 hours for every hour of class...for us engineering students they tell us it should be 3 hours of study per hour of class; then, you also have to take into account the out-of-class projects and such for engineering). Hopefully I'll have some time to make some music and whatnot; gaming is going to be a bit of a gray area - the engineering professors and freshman advisors have this "OMG, GAYMS WILL MAKE UR GPA DROP LIEK A BOMB!!!" attitude. I'll see what my overall schedule will be like the first couple weeks and then decide how to allocate my time.
