M-1 Grand Prix 2008

i just have to post this.

last night the asahi broadcasting aired the annual M-1 Grand Prix 2008, and what a great show it was. every routine by each of the 9 manzai duos were terrific and high in quality; and my favorite one was from オードリー (O-DORI-) during the first round. just watch the video below:

i thought they (O-DORI-) are going to win, but the winner goes to NONSTYLE, which is totally fine by me because they're funny too.

with the year 2008 coming to an end, i'm totally looking forward to more entertaining annual japanese tv specials. this is the time when japanese tv went really crazy with their ideas to produce awesome tv shows.

come on, come on...

i recorded the video below (click link to reveal it) during the announcement of the winner.

REVEAL VIDEO

lesbians you'd dream about

masami chan and ueno juri, kissing in the first episode of the new japanese drama series [Last Friend]. there is nothing more exciting in japanese tv than this scene.

o yeah! way to go masami chan, you've picked the right drama!

..

heroes in japanese

at last, the popular american tv-show heroes is coming to japanese tv (it's already on DVD though); and of course the audio is going to be dubbed to japanese. the first thing that comes into my mind is this: are the japanese going to smart up and also re-dub the japanese dialogue in the original version? the japanese dialogue in the original heroes is so dumb and bad, it must be!

and i'm right! they dubbed all the original japanese dialogues, into PROPER JAPANESE! thank you! but i was surprised because i didn't expect them to also re-dubbed hiro's dialogues, which i think is not very necessary because his japanese is good enough. well, he (masi oka) is a japanese-american, the only japanese in the show.

well, maybe they did it so that when hiro is speaking english, there would be no complication to try to find a voice actor that sounds exactly like masi oka.

anyways, i think heroes is the prime example of the stereotypes that asians is facing in the west: all asians are the same, have the same culture and language. this is because, other than masi oka, all the other 'japanese' characters in the show is chinese, and you don't have to be an ignorant westerner to notice that by the their facial appearance and the god-awful pronunciation.

but i guess it can't be help. maybe there is not so many japanese is the US, compared to the chinese population. that must be it. i hope the reason is that instead of pure ignorance from the casting part. this might been quite off topic, but the worst actor that has the worst japanese accent is the guy playing adam monroe/takezo kensei (david anders) in season 3. damn, his acting is the worst in all the characters in the show, and he has the worst japanese pronunciation ever! i can't really understand what the hell he is saying when he's talking japanese. the original japanese dialogue was pretty dumb anyways, so i guess it does not matter. but what i don't understand is this: why is this guy, who has no acting talent or the ability to properly PRONOUNCE japanese language's simple aiueos, got the main role throughout the end of season 3?

back to stereotyping in hollywood. i know it's not important to a lot of people, and it's really not that bad to BE that ignorant. you can't force other people to acknowledge the cultural differences between us. the rapid growth of globalization, with the great help of the boom of the internet, does help people of different backgrounds to learn about each other; and i think we should appreciate the 'rehabilitate and re-educate' process was even happening, although in a worm-crawling speed, little by little. but i do hope these people would take off their horse eye covers and see the world in a bigger, multi-cultural way.

what was my post about in the first place?

new TV !!!

at last, i got a new hi-def tv! at 70000 yen, this sharp aquos 32inch LCD TV is the best-valued LCD TV out there; well at least in japan. i bought this bigger, better tv because i was simply bored with my 4-years-old 14inch CRT TV (image above). it was time to upgrade into something that's future proof; into the high definition broadcasting era! although i'm quite late, i'm glad i made it.

with the small space in my current room, the tv looks huge and watching it for the first time is quite overwhelming. maybe for the size of my current room, a 26inch tv would be enough; but i'm moving to a new, bigger apartment this april so i just have to be patient and be 'overwhelmed' for another month.

so like every new electronics that i have spent my (read: malaysian tax payer's) money on, i did some testing to see whether it was a good deal or not . first, watching Digital TV Broadcasting of course! the factory setting for the tv is too bright for my taste so after fine-tuning and playing around with the software settings, i was more than satisfied with the superb picture quality. comparing a normal analog broadcasting with a digital one is like comparing the ps1 to the ps3: the bump in quality is HUGE! you can even see pores and lots of other visual imperfections of tv personalities that you can't see before with a CRT (analog) TV. i think malaysian tv stations should start broadcasting HD content as soon as possible; it's amazing!

this TV produces one of the best black colour on a HD TV ever! black is very deep and ghosting is very minimal although still noticeable if you look hard enough. the factory settings tend to make the skin tones a bit reddish too, but that can be easily fixed with software settings. to make it short, the picture quality from digital broadcasting is superb and i really can't ask for more at this cheap price range. the colour is very vibrant and vivd although i think the speaker lacks the 'umph' when compared to my computer's 5.1 speakers. actually, the worst thing about this tv is the speakers, it's quite 'murky'.

next, connection to the xbox 360. although this aquos does not support 1080p, it still look brilliant and sharp at 720p. well, a human eye can't really tell the difference between 720p and 1080i when comparing between two 32 inch HDTV at those respective resolutions anyways, so it's not really a big deal. you are only going to see a significant difference when the size of the tv is 40 inch and up.

when playing video games, the most concerning aspects of a HDTV is the response time; and this TV performed quite well. of course today's HDTV still can't beat the speed of a traditional CRT TV, but it's getting better and better and this aquos has proven to be a firm proof of that progress. i tried this with the new devil may cry 4; a very fast game that rely on fast button response and i have to say, i have not noticed any lag or what so ever. brilliant! but still, it's not even close to a CRT TV response time but i'll get used to it. so for the hardcore gamers, this tv is probably not the best tv for you. try the new samsung gaming tv instead, IF you have the extra dough.

lastly, i tested the TV as a second monitor for my computer. out of the three connections, this one looks the murkier and NOT as awesome; but of course it depends on the video source itself. you won't get crystal clear video when it's a 800x600 video! HD content still looks awesome though, but not the best that i've ever seen.

at first i got a bit confused with the automotive image stretching functions the tv used to handle videos with unconventional resolutions and size ratios; but using the media player classic has proven to solve many of the head scratching problems. now i can watch lost episode 4 with a bigger picture! then i tried watching 300 (hd-dvd version) and spiderman 3 (blu-ray version) and the picture quality is just amazing. holy shit. now i want all of my movies to be in native blu-ray quality! i almost got a video orgasm.

then i tried playing computer games with the tv, but i still couldn't figure out how to bump up the resolution to 1280p. both my graphic card and the TV support resolution higher than that, but i just can't make it work. so more research to do!

all in all, this is not the best LCD HDTV out there, but it sure has the best bang for the buck. or yen. at this price range, this is the best high definiton-capable LCD HDTV anyone could get. the picture quality is superb (digital tv broadcasting being the best, computer monitor being the last of the 3) although the audio is lacking. a very good product (considering the cheap price tag) from sharp and in the end, i have become another satisfied customer.

george lucas! give us star wars in blu-ray !!!