The Sound of Silence
Alright guys, it’s no surprise that things have a been bit quiet here on the home front. I hate to drop the “I’m busy” excuse, but it’s true. That said, it’s like 3:30 right now, I’m not super tired, so I’ll throw together a weak loot post on the fly here…
On Saturday I went back home to DC to catch some silly political rally, and while I was there, a bunch of mail had piled up in my room. Amongst these things were some packages that absolutely stunk of otaku…
One of these packages was a set of speakers adorned with Watanabe Akio illustrations.
I just happened to order these on a whim. One day I was on AmiAmi for one reason or another, and noticed some Watanabe Akio illustrations on the front page. Clicking revealed that these illustrations were in fact on a set of computer speakers. Noticing that there was only one set left in stock, I ordered them without a second thought. I have some money, okay?
Anyway, the more astute of you may notice that these illustrations carry a Hello Kitty theme. Sanrio is doing some kind of collaboration thing with different illustrators, and this is part of that project. As for the speakers themselves, the illustrations–especially the slightly more complicated one–don’t look very good up close due to the fact that speakers have holes in them, but they look great at a distance, which is of course how you’re suppose to view them, so there’s no problem there.
I can’t speak much for sound quality since I’m not much of an audiophile, but sound comes through nicely on these speakers. Compared to my old ones (which I’ve had for god knows how long), the sound seems crisper, but at the same time not as full bodied as the sound from my old speakers.
Here’s some pictures of them in action:
Since my room looks less like an otaku room these days, these speakers don’t really have much in the way of other surrounding painful illustrations plastered around the room to interact with, so them sitting around on their own on an otherwise normal desk is kind of weird. But they’re cute, and I’m happy with them. I shouldn’t really have to say anything about Watanabe’s work at this point, as it’s typically top notch. He’s in good form here.
The other thing that came in the mail was the second issue of Animerca, that Japanese doujinshi I wrote for a few months back.
I got a chance to see this book beforehand a little while ago, but it’s nice being able to look through it for an extended period of time. The production on this thing really is quite nice, and from what I can tell, my words came out alright in Japanese. I don’t know how many other copies they’ve sold since C78, but I really want to know what people think of my essay, as well as my comments in the little chat segment me and a few other guys did for the book. I guess I should Google around for some reviews…
Flipping through this thing also gives me some extra incentive to review my kanji flashcards, since these essays are serious business. Thanks a bunch, Episode Zero-san and Ill Critique-san. You guys own!
Lastly, the 2011 pixiv calendar came in. I’m not going to include any pictures, because that’s this guy’s thing. In short, it’s a wonderful collection of art from some of pixiv’s biggest stars, and it’s really awesome seeing their beautiful work rendered on large sheets of paper for you to gaze upon two months at a time. That said, I felt this calendar could have easily been a twelve page thing. With all the talent on pixiv, boiling things down to just six artists seems a little sad. I mean, they’re six of my absolute favorite artists, but six more would have really been incredible.
Anyway, it’s already 4 am, so I’m gonna brush my teeth and attempt to sleep.