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Debaser Uncategorized

Destiny: Rise of Iron

Well, after leaving the game for close to a year (the last time I played was I think in December, when they had the Sparrow racing event), as the time was coming for the release of this expansion, I decided to re-install the game. Feeling rusty, I went ahead and created a new character, and found myself having a blast playing through the original storyline and expansions. With Rise of Iron, I’ve been having a lot of fun playing this too (with my trusty Hunter), although I think I put in a bit too much time, and burned myself out (after getting to a light level of around 340). I think I’ll get back to it once I have the chance to play with friends more (so far, I’ve done all of the Rise of Iron stuff solo).

Categories
Debaser Uncategorized

Ghostbusters

I thought this was a pretty fun movie. The absolute star of the show for me is Kate McKinnon – pretty much any scene that focuses on her is great and weird and funny (and her action sequence towards the end with the ecto guns is actually really cool to watch). Chris Hemsworth was also super funny, but I found Wiig to be a bit wasted – she’s just called on to be the straight person, and so doesn’t really get to be funny. But yeah, overall, I though this was pretty entertaining, and it’s too bad we’re not going to get a sequel (especially considering that little tease in the after-credit sequence). 

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Debaser Uncategorized

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

I’m going to go against the grain and say that I actually quite enjoyed watching Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. My friend James didn’t like it much, as he wrote in this review, and although I can’t fault a lot of the points he brings up, I was dazzled by the visuals. The action sequences are all super exciting to watch, and I loved the warp dagger ability the lead character often uses. Believe it or not, it actually got me even more interested in playing the upcoming game, as I’m now more interested in seeing how the rest of this story unfolds. I’m not saying it’s a fantastic movie, but I sure had a good time with it.

Categories
Design Typography

Mashikaku

screen-shot-2016-09-27-at-21-32-46

Mashikakuscreen-shot-2016-09-27-at-21-41-14 is a beautiful typography project that is composed of over 9000 characters, all done in a super angular structure that is inspired by an old form of typeset used in advertising during the Edo era. Read more about it in this Spoon & Tamago post. I quite like the items you can get printed by them, and it looks like they had a great workshop at the Fab Cafe in Tokyo. Go here to create your own icon using the typeset — I’m kinda tempted by a cushion with my wife’s name (pictured).

Categories
Art

Black Hole

blackhole

Pictured here is a new piece by Tokyo-based artist Andrew Browne, which he produced for this short story. It’s done with a ballpoint pen on paper. I also really like Andrew’s Buddha Vader (or Darth Buddha, take your pick). Found via Canvas.

Categories
Design Food

Nine Leaves

my-creation-branding-by-yasu-kageyama-creative-director-in-tokyo

I really love the branding work done here for Nine Leaves, a Japanese craft rum. It was produced by Yasu Kageyama, a creative director at Brew. Found via Canvas.

Categories
Photography

Tokyo Compression

photographs-of-tokyo-commuters-stuck-in-the-subway-2-900x1127

I remember seeing Michael Wolf‘s “Tokyo Compression” series — photos taken of people commuting on the train — a while back, and was reminded of it through this post on Fubiz. I’ve definitely had my face in a position like this.

Categories
Anime Film Games

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV

neon_0001_large

I’m going to go against the grain and say that I actually quite enjoyed watching Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV. My friend James didn’t like it much, as he wrote in this review, and although I can’t fault a lot of the points he brings up, I was dazzled by the visuals. The action sequences are all super exciting to watch, and I loved the warp dagger ability the lead character often uses. Believe it or not, it actually got me even more interested in playing the upcoming game, as I’m now more interested in seeing how the rest of this story unfolds. I’m not saying it’s a fantastic movie, but I sure had a good time with it.

Categories
Music

Miniflex

miniflex-back

As I think I’ve written in recent posts, since unearthing my archives and going through my old posts, it’s gotten me back into the music I was listening to at that time, which mostly revolved around the Shibuya-kei scene. Through various means I’ve been able to start rebuilding my collection — the biggest thanks go out to Tom, one of the originals from the old Pizzicato Five Mailing List, who has been my savior — and it not only has me listening to this music again, but talking about it as well — often with David, another P5ML alumni. Miniflex came up, a name I remembered from those days but nothing more than that, but since listening to the album (or mini-album, as it’s pretty short) Sud on Friday night, I’ve been absolutely obsessed, and have been listening to it pretty much non-stop.

Miniflex is a solo project by producer Yugo Katayama, who was the man behind the music of Yukari Fresh, one of my favorite artists from those days. It looks like Sud was the only release he did under the name Miniflex, and that makes me pretty sad — I’m hunting for anything else that would be original music from him, but falling short.

And speaking of David, he’s currently listening to every single Pizzicato Five release (or at least pretty much all of them) and writing a review and scoring each of those releases. I’ve already read a few of them and they’re great (and they in turn made me revisit some of those records with a fresh pair of ears). I think he’s only planning on publishing the reviews once he’s written all of them, but I’ll make sure to link to them when he does do that.