Current mood:	chipper
Entry tags:	general, infinite ryvius, purchases, singapore trip

Singapore? No Big Spending On Anime Stuffs For Me!


Looks like a lot had happened while I was in Singapore. Sadamm is dead; (Suzumiya) Haruhi is now licensed in North America; Character singles for Koizumi Itsuki and Kyon were announced; the title for the seventh and last book of Harry Potter was announced; Johor Bahru was hit by flood; Taiwan was hit by an earthquake! And Etcetera. What has these to do with me? Nothing at all, except for the final one, in where the internet has been rather laggy (read: loading in a slow speed) in my place. Indeed, I'm now back here in Malaysia from Singapore where there wasn't internet connection for me. Okay, so I had had a brief moment on the net, but the internet connection was slow in Singapore nevertheless with me using *free* wireless internet connection. I wasn't able to download anything (read: no Kanon, yo! I miss all the Uguu~), nor could I upload anything (even Photobucket failed me!).

I cannot say that I didn't have fun in Singapore, because I did. Although in the end of the 11-days trip I wasn't able to visit any of the places that tsubaki_ had introduced in his blog, I visited a few nice places (which has nothing to do with animes so I'll skip listing them) and rided the MRT for the first time in my life. Well, getting around in Singapore isn't easy and the price of petrol for cars in there are so damn *siao* expensive, almost more than twice the price in Malaysia. That is why the MRT plays an important role there.


I admit that I had tried my best to beg my uncle to stop me at Sunshine Plaza so that I can go into La Tendo to have a look I had to follow my uncle around town in his car since he is the driver and we went through Sunshine Plaza on the way to Chinatown and Little India. Despite not being able to travel too far, I had visited quite a few shopping centres which are only a few walks away from MRT stations. So... I had also done some shopping, muahahaha. >=D



...although none of them are anime figurines.



You couldn't ask for more. My aunt has her own collection of mangas, although most of them are drawn by some nameless artists. A whole box of mangas available, but somehow I was only interested in one particular manga. It's a rather short romance + humor manga about a mermaid falling in love to a human, blah blah blah. At first, I was acting like Kyon Yuuichi calling those mangas "those typical Shoujo manga", but then I couldn't believe myself: I had actually enjoyed the manga! =O


Reading Chinese translated Pokémon mangas from above the sky HDB flat I'm living in

Other than those shoujo mangas, I had also read 10 Pokémon mangas in Chinese. According to my cousin who is the rightful owner of the Pokémon mangas (he is a Pokémon fan like myself, and he claims that there are going to be two new more new evolutions for Eevee!), there are around 20 volumes until now and is still running! Walao. But as a boy raised up in Singapore, he has problems reading non-simplified Chinese and therefore aren't able to fully enjoy the mangas.


A place where you can rent and buy mangas. But somehow, most of the mangas are in Chinese.

The nearest place to me with mangas and anime VCDs is a shop located inside the Northpoint Shopping Centre which was next to the Yishun MRT station (which was only a few walks away from where I am staying). I ended up buying nothing... okay maybe not nothing, but it’s not anything worth to be brought up... Okay okay! So my mom got a few fancy anime character keychains to be brought back to Malaysia for my siblings, and they include a Detective Conan one, a Lacus Clyne one and another one is a female character from Fruits Basket, I don’t know who, and I don’t want to know who. On the other hand, I also got myself an Asiasoft game cash card for MapleStory... *heehee*


Comic Connection. But they also sell GameBoy Advance games and other stuffs.

I also went over to the shopping mall next to the Pasir Ris MRT Station in the Eastern side of Sinagpore. There’s this store, the “Comics Connection”. There are also quite a lot of anime figurines being sold there as well as accessories such as necklaces, ring, etc. Well... being as poor as church mouse, I was only able to do window shopping as I wouldn’t dare to ask my mom to buy any. Haiz.


Orchard was packed with people! It's like walking in a can of sardines! But you see nothing in the photo, eh?

On the day we went to Orchard Road (which was Christmas eve if I am not wrong) to fulfill my request, my aunt brought me to Kinokuniya which was inside the Takashimaya shopping mall. In there, I had found the English mangas section and there were so many mangas with different titles around. I got hooked onto this N.H.K ni Youkoso manga, but then when I looked at the price, I immediately changed my mind. S$ 16 is too expensive for a manga.


I bought the Chinese Translation of the second book of Suzumiya Haruhi over @ Kino. Somewhat boring. =\

I continued on looking in the bookstore (it was huge and I almost got lost inside it!), and I stumble upon the Chinese translation for the Suzumiya Haruhi light novels. I couldn’t help myself and had bought the second volume. Up to now I have read the second chapter and now I am starting to regret buying the book instead of the N.H.K ni Youkoso manga. This was because I found out that the Suzumiya Haruhi light novels are starting to get boring (the part where the SOS brigade shoot the movie and talk with the sponsors), plus they are also available in public libraries! lol.


Indeed I bought some animes in Singapore, what are you thinking? I am poor but I'm not that poor! Although it is indeed some anime title I've never heard before from 1999...

I have bought this *cheap* Odex-licensed anime “Infinite RYVIUS”. 26 episodes in 12 VCDs worth S$12.80 (the original price is S$59.80, lol). Having Japanese/English dialogue with English subtitles, the quality is surprisingly good, at least better than those back here in Malaysia. You hear it, “Infinite RYVIUS”. After I finish all 26 episodes, I shall do a review for the anime, unlike what I am doing now episode by episode for Kanon and Asatte no Houkou. However, the anime isn’t up to my expectations so far (I have currently finished episode 3) and I hope that the story would be more and more interesting. Comparable to Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam Seed/Destiny or any other mecha genre animes, this anime tends to run it’s storyline in outer space, dealing with enemies who try to destroy their spaceships. It took me some time to get used to those jargons such as RYVIUS, Libeil Delta, etc. It reminds me of the time when I had just started to watch Shakugan no Shana, when words such as “Guze no Tomogara” and “mistes” made me go giddy struggling to know what are they.



Want to know a website where you can buy VCDs and DVDs online? vcddvd88.com Don’t judge a book by its cover. The URL of the website might be a bit l33t-ish but the website looks somewhat high-tech. Whoever designed it must be a PHP pro or something along that line (or maybe they’re using some software, eh?). I was expecting those Front-Page created website, considering that I got the link from this VCD shop over at Johor Bahru. Aunt told me that mangas are better bought over in JB since they would be much more cheaper than those in Singapore, so we went over there crossing the country-border. It was around 9:30am at that time and the shop which my aunt wanted to bring me to hadn’t open yet, so I ended up going into this “Top Win” shop which was next to the manga shop. Diao, I tell you, there are a lot of animes which I suspected that they hadn’t obtained the proper licence from the original anime creators. The following are a few examples:



Shuffle & School Rumble



ANGEL RABBIE!



DIGIMON SAVERS!!!



But of course, they also sell original stuffs. Animes OSTs, for example. lol.

Notice the few photos that I had taken above? This fellow with a beard who happened to be a worker of the shop came over to me and told me not to take any photos inside the shop. He gave me a card with the above URL on it and asked me to go to the internet to look for those images of VCD covers if I want them. Lol. There’s also another lady who had said something about “Wah, so good ah, helping us to do free advertisement” and I seriously take that as an insult. >:O Nevertheless I walked out of the store, empty-handed.

Well, I suppose people don’t like strangers taking photos of their own private possessions, lol.

Hmm... I think that would be it for my Singapore Trip. In here, I would like to wish every readers of Yamaki’s Anime Blog, male or female, good or evil, children or adults, anime fans or non-anime fans alike, a late Merry Christmas 2006 and a Happy New Year 2007! I'll do a resolution for this year shortly after this. :P

Oh and when I am typing this, an e-dorama is going on over @ Anime Desho Desho. Hmm.