Evangelion 2.0 & May'n Live in KL

It was like an anime affairs for me for the past few days. First, there's the Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance movie screening thanks to Robb and Cathay Cineplexes.

Those that don't follow anime won't know what is Evangelion. It is an Japanese animated series in the late 90s, of which there's a movie spin off called Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone and Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance is continued where Evangelion 1.0 stopped.

For those of you that didn't watch the series or Evangelion 1.0, don't worry because the story continuance doesn't continued from the series and Evangelion 2.0 can be a story on it's own even if you didn't watch Evangelion 1.0.

As usual, even in a story as serious and dark in Evangelion 2.0, there's always some humour and comic relief to be found in an anime. There are scene that lighten up the mood of the heavy and dark story. So, it's like a roller-coaster ride watching the movie.

You'll be dissappointed if you are expecting Evangelion to be like Gundam where the battle scene involved battalion of mechas and combat strategy is often applied. In Evangelion, the battle is always 1 Angel (name given to the bio-mecha enemy, it's believed that there are 12 Angels) and 1 or more Evangelion. The battle is more like a street fight battle just like human. Unlike Gundam, there's really flesh and blood involved when either the Angel or Evangelion is damaged and the pilot can feel the pain too because the pilot has to connect his/her nerves to the Evangelion to operate it.

The ending might seems a bit vague or more like there's no ending at all. Well, sit back after the credits and you'll find yourself watching the trailer for the third installment, Evangelion 3.0 Q (Quickening). That will explain the ending of Evangelion 2.0. It's to be continued.

Some of the scenes are quite violence, which from my view is not suitable for kids. So, I think Evangelion 2.0 should be rated "PG 13" instead of "U" (Safe for general public). For you anime fans out there, Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance is now showing at Cathay Cineplexes at e@Curve. Don't miss this chance to catch it on the big screen.

Rating: 3.5/5

Second anime affair or somewhat related to anime is Mayʼn BIG WAAAAAVE!! Asia Tour 2010 – Live in Kuala Lumpur. I was lucky to have won the ticket from Serge. So sorry I don't have picture of the cute May'n here because I didn't bring my camera into the concert venue. Photography is strictly forbidden except for a few daredevil that were able to get away with it.

The stage before the concert starts.

The concert starts on time at 8pm, (expected for a Japanese concert to start on time and of course end on time too lol). This is the first time that I've been to a concert by a Japanese artist, so it's kind of new for me. Minus one music was used instead of a live band (low budget), this is after held in KL Live Center which can fit maybe 500 people maybe? Well, not to be disappointed, May'n brought four of her own dancers to Malaysia.

Even if the ticket is selling at RM 198 (free standing), it still managed to attract crowd that filled up the whole dance floor of KL Live Center. May'n started with a few fast songs wearing white T-shirt with a fur over coat and white jeans. Her facial expression with her dance is very good but she's struggled to greet her fans in English. Well, at least the crowd understands what she said in English. The climax came when she sang the first ending theme song from the anime Macross Frontier, "DIAMOND CREVASSE", the fans started to sang with her, omg they can remember the lyrics. Too bad she didn't sing "Ai Oboete Imasu ka" (愛・おぼえていますか, Do You Remember Love?).

After an hour of performing, she went backstage for a 5 minute break and came out changed into a black short dress with star bling-bling. She also wore a black mini shorts, showing her strong but not muscular legs. In one of her song, "XYZ", she taught the audience to a simple "XYZ" dance move in the chorus so that the audience can follow the dance when she sang the chorus. This is one of the specialty of Japanese concert where the audience get to be interact with the artist in a synchronized move on certain song. The feeling is great.

Second part lasted for half an hour, and May'n went backstage. The crowd started to shout "En-ko-ru-" (Encore) and "Mo ikkai" (One more time). Sure enough, May'n came out again, now wearing a white colour with pink stars T-shirt (her tour's T-shirt) and black mini shorts. Before she sang her last song, there's tears when she gave a short closing speech in Japanese. Part of it is like this, "Even though Japan and Malaysia is far apart but I'll remember you all always." "Till we meet again." I think most of the audience there understands Japanese anyway, so she might as well speak Japanese from the very beginning :p She ended the concert with an English title. All in all, May'n put up a great performance and her fans like very much. The sounds system can improve though, 90% of the time the music is louder than her voice.

[Advertorial]

Are you using a BlackBerry? BlackBerry let you connect to the Internet world anywhere and anytime. It’s especially good for social networking application like Facebook, Twitter and Plurk which are the three apps that I always used on the BlackBerry. I also like it that BlackBerry was able to integrate with my Gmail and I get my Gmail push into my BlackBerry’s Inbox.

Good news for those of you that is using Xpax, during the the Xpax Big Freekin Sales just use the BlackBerry® Advance(2.5G) package for just RM 2.50 a day, you’ll be able to enjoy free BlackBerry access on the weekend. This is like paying only RM 12.50 for a week usage of BlackBerry access. Three plates of chicken rice is around RM 15, so during the Xpax Big Freekin Sales, the BlackBerry access plan is cheaper than three plates of chicken rice. Isn’t that a bargain?

Let’s do the calculation, if you use the plan for a month, which is RM 12.50 times four, total cost for a month is only RM 50. It’s less than RM 58 for a month usage of BlackBerry access. Get the advantage of free BlackBerry Access now before it’s too late because Xpax Big Freekin Sales ends on the 31st of March 2010.