Good Riddance ODEX! Farewell Anime!

As some of you might know the main reason i got interested in all-things Japanese is because i was introduced to anime during my poly-days. Since then my taste has evolved to J-music, J-idols, J-movies and now most recently J-dramas. Now i think the think the time has come for me to give up on my first love (anime).

And i blame this on the entire ODEX and AVPAS crackdown on anime downloading that has been going on since the beginning of the year. I always try to place myself on both sides of any argument to try and understand where each party is coming from, so a brief summary on the 2 sides of this matter:

ODEX: Downloading anime is illegal. We own the licenses to officially release anime in Singapore have authorisation to take legal action (meaning: Fine $$) against anyone who had and are still downloading anime in Singapore. We blame our poor VCD/DVD (VCD..haha!) sales on these 'pirates' and won't hesitate to sue the pants off anyone (they actually sued a 9 year old-boy)

The 'other' side: You are just using the excuse of piracy to account for your poor sales when the real problem is that you don't understand what anime fans want. Your releases suck in video quality, subtitles and dubs etc... Using lawsuits and threats to recover your losses is really the lowest.

All this has been going on for quite a while now and my intention was to let all the hoo-hah die down before going back into anime but just recently i've been reading again about all that ODEX has done to persecute (some call it a 'witch-hunt') anime lovers (pirates) and i ask myself, is it all worth it to take this risk? I love anime, but i certainly won't die without watching it.

And just reading how unreasonable and unfair the law suits are. Basically, they CAN persecute you in a court for $10,000/episode but they will settle for an out-of-court settlement of $3,000 to $5,000, and from what i read you have to sign an agreement that basically allows them to sue you AGAIN for the same thing if they so please). And as someone questioned in a HWZ post, "Pay $3,000 and they still don't give you the anime huh?"

Furthermore, instead of first issuing a warning letter, the lawsuit will just land 'Boom' in your mailbox straightaway. It's like stealing candy from a mama shop and instead of the shopowner shouting, "Oei!" first and giving chase, he just whips out a shotgun and guns you down.

To be fair, i acknowledge that Yes, downloading anime is illegal and wrong. As soon as i read that there would be a crackdown i completely stopped downloading. However, i read that ODEX has the power to persecute anyone who downloaded within the LAST 7 months*!

Now disregarding that they don't send out warning letters before a lawsuit, if they were to suddenly send a letter saying, "Hey, we're going to sue you for what you dl'ed XX months ago. Despite you stopping your downloading when we made public that it was illegal, we still see a need to sue you to earn back our $$." Now they CAN do this. That's just totally unfair and unethical, IMO, moreso than 'stealing' a video.

It seems that they just out to make a quick buck from lawsuits rather than improve their releases and pandering to the anime niche market.

Lastly, just saw this articles today about ODEX director gloating about suing people. If i didn't hate him (or rather his company) before i certainly hate him now. Anyway you can follow this saga through this links:

- Hardware Zone forumers expose Odex director?
- how do i gotten pwnt
- Excuse me, is that Stephen? The Stephen Sing?
- Stephen Sing: Odex Director (Hardware zone Forum thread, their CSI team investigating the 'gloating' matter)
- ODEX Wiki

Anyway after all that is said and done, yes, i will try to wean myself off anime. I DON'T need to 'pirate' to keep myself entertained. I have always imported DVDs and CDs of shows/music i like. I have no financial issues about buying original. I LIKE buying Original.

ODEX, you will never have my support on any of their products unless you stop this lawsuit bullshit and reimburse all the people you sued. I certainly don't need any of your shitty releases. You will need consumers like ME more than i will ever need anything from you. Good riddance.
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Oh ya, after feeling a bit pissed today reading all this ODEX crap, i called the police on the neighbour living across from me. That dumb *insert expletive here* was burning some things and all his ashes flew into our front porch. Talking to him didn't seem to do any good (retard..) so i just called the police hotline to confirm whether i could file a complaint on this matter and the police said yes. So i did.

I feel justified in my decision because i didn't use the power of the law for monetary gains or greed! I'm within my rights and just protecting my property and teaching some idiots a good lesson in return. They should thank me.

Look! It's the National Day Parade! AGAIN!!

Before it strikes midnight, i just want to say something on this, our 42nd National Day and NDP: How many hundred times do we have to watch a NDP flash Live or on our TV screens before we realise we've just been watching the same old-rehashed crap every single year??

I'm not trying to be unpatriotic here, but give me a break! I just turned on my TV and became overwhelmed by a feeling of deja vu; Didn't i see this last year? And when i think back of the year before i can remember myself thinking the exact same thing.

If someone can introduce me to a NDP Otaku who can tell me the subtle differences and improvements from this year, last year and the 36-40th editions, please do. I really want to shake his hand. Makes me wonder why we Singaporeans are so hard-up for those tickets. I guess it just reflects our 'everything free must grab' mentality.
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Drama: Ushi ni Negai wo - Love & Farm (Episode 1 - 3)

This will probably one of the last J-dramas i watch before i fly off next week. Basically there are only 2 things you need to know about this drama, 1, the plot; 6 university students from Tokyo go to a farm in Hokkaido for a farming internship program (this drama is supposed to be 'educational') and 2, Toda Erika is starring in it.

Words of wisdom suddenly ring in Kazumi's head: "Don't have a cow, man!

Annoyingly, EVERYONE from the university is either a loser, spoiled or just a plain jerk EXCEPT for Toda Erika's character, Chiba Kazumi. And i'm being totally unbiased (hard as it may be to believe) when i state that. The show's supposed to semi-educational but i don't really want to know (or care) where my milk and meat comes from...

A quick run-down of the cast and characters:

1 : Toda Erika as Chiba Kazumi: Clumsy but hardworking. The friendly cute girl next door amd the only normal person in the group. If this was a harem this will be the girl you should probably choose to end up with.
2 : Koide Keisuke as Mano Tohei: 101% Jerk. His father is some bigshot and he loves to act like the leader of the group and boss people around. Hates it when someone else upstages him.
3 : Nakata Atsuhiko as Wakamatsu Ryuta: The silent weirdo (read:loser). Loves to draw pictures of people when they aren't looking.
4 : Aibu Saki as Fujii Ayaka: Spoiled, irritating city slicker. She gets jealous over another girl flirting with a guy who is not her boyfriend, even though she has a boyfriend.
5 : Karina as Suenaga Mihoko: The spoiled rich kid who does not want to do a single thing around the farm.
6 : Tamayama Tetsuji as Takashimizu Takashi: His family owns the farm and he wants to run away from inheriting it. Wishy washy and weak-willed.
7 : Extras

Ultimately, what's gonna keep me watching this series will definitely be Toda Erika. The show is low-average 6/10 material at best and unless you got a fetish for cows and farming then you'll probably not care what happens to any of the dumb cows. Watching all the crying and arguing over cow-care just made me hungry instead.
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Found this funny Borat video on Youtube. Quite old stuff but great if you couldn't get enough of his brand of humor from the movie:

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I finally decided to cut my hair before flying to Japan. With a good chunk of my hair off, i feel at least 5 years younger and it's much more cooling, especially since it's been very hot this past few days. No prizes for realising my new 'do looks the same as all my previous haircuts.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

For all the hype about today being the last match day at the National Stadium before it is demolished, surprisingly i didn't feel a single bit sentimental about the entire event at all. At the end of the day all i really cared about was watching a good soccer match. Overall i'm much sadder to see us lose than to know this is our last game at Kallang.

One last pic for old time's sake. You can tell the true fans by the shirt.

And we played well** against Australia. To lose 3-0 despite having so many chances to score just reflects how badly we lack the killer instincts in front of goal. Even big-game scorer Indra Sahdan couldn't break our duck, and was guilty of missing a fantastic 1-on-1 chance in the first half.

(**To quote from this Soccernet article: "The result might have been different had Singapore capitalised on goalscoring chances they created in a scoreless first half after opening up Australia's defence." and Australia's Coach: "Our attacking play was fantastic but we've got some work to do in defence. I was not happy with that side of things,' Arnold told reporters.
'Singapore tested us and were very unlucky. We have a lot of work to do.")

Viduka getting the better of Noh Rahman.

Australia's striker, Mark Viduka on the other hand, was a class act. The ease at which he found space to score his 2 goals was just fantastic.

Kewell going by Aide and Precious

Harry Kewell came on for the last 30 minutes and scored Australia's 2nd goal, as well as assisting Viduka for the 3rd.

They must have had like only 10 firework to shoot off.

Good thing we didn't stay for the fireworks display and the closing ceremony, cause the fireworks were just pitiful. It's as if they were on a shoestring budget. Managed to catch the display just before we boarded the bus.

Anyway, farewell to the Grand Old Lady of Kallang. Thanks for all the good memories (not last night though). Really a shame we couldn't win our final match.