Plans for the Future

Readers,

So, in my continuing effort to do new and radical things in the pursuit of individual enlightenment, I've decided something.

When I was younger and in school, I used to walk around in the middle of the night. To what end, I didn't know. I'd go past friend's houses, knowing they were asleep, I'd retrace the steps of my childhood through the cover of night, eventually coming to find myself dissatisfied by never finding anything.

I was looking for something, what that might have been I didn't know, but I did know that when I finally did come across it, I would know.

So, I find myself here, preparing to return to the same grinding of my soul and youth into a dusty pool that I know as money.

I sell my soul, in exchange for normality. I sell my heart, in exchange for the promise that I will see tomorrow.

No more.

I've decided to cast aside this life of mediocrity and cloudy mass of days, months, and years, broken up only by the toying fiction that my life has purpose like this. I've decided to travel.

It's...a little mind-blowing. My plans are simple really, get a plane ticket, some survival gear, land in a foreign culture and start walking. Hop from foreign country to foreign country, until eventually I find myself somewhere I don't have to look for anymore. Japan first, then maybe South Korea, Russia, Taiwan, or Thailand. China. India. Vietnam, Istanbul, Europe, Africa, South America, the East Coast, Canada, Mexico, back to Japan, hell, anywhere is fine really.

I will keep this up a little while longer, and then life will begin to unfold for me, finally. Twenty-one years lost in the cloud of society searching for something, and I finally feel like I'm on the brink of my ultimate discovery. Money is a tool of society, I will abandon this society and it's rules and take to find my own path.

Asia exists because I've seen it in a book, seen pictures on TV and the internet, and heard about it through the news. This is the same for all things I know about the world, but I am hereby done thinking in such a immature method. I will confirm that these things exist by stepping on them and holding them in my hands. Nothing exists until one confirms it for themselves. I will live by that ideal in just a few months.

Watch over me, comrades and friends. We may not meet again in the near future, but I will carry with me memories of you in my journey.

Regards,
Kageryu

Kara no Kyoukai - Blu-ray Box Set Feature Presentation

I mean what I say and I say what I mean. I got it. I didn't get it just for myself, I got it for all of us, since we can't all afford a $400 box set.

As I recently moved, I decided to set up a Kara no Kyoukai shrine next to my chair at my desk.

Each disc has it's corresponding Takeuchi drawing on it, excuse my shitty cell phone camera, they're actually really, really high quality.

An eighth special disc includes the OVA epilogue, Kara no Kyoukai Remix, and a special program recapping films 1-6 in preparation for the seventh film.

It comes with two books, each with a soft velvet cover and silver writing.

As great as the actual movies are, the box set really shines in the Visual Chronicle.

A collection of visuals by Takeuchi and Tomonori Sudou, each more beautiful than the next.

For the most part, there's two versions of each picture, I'll only be showing a handful of them, but they're all stunning.

The Visual Chronicle also comes with several interviews from Takeuchi, Sudou, and Takeuchi, Nasu, and Maaya Sakamoto. They're fascinating to read.

God I love Azaka. It explains why I also love Akiha.

Excuse all the glaring, it's my stupid lamp's fault. This picture is interesting because it's done in the new cell-shaded style Type-Moon did for Actress Again.

Sudou honestly isn't my favorite artist, and the whole change in art direction for the Kara no Kyoukai films never did really sit well with me, but whatever. It turned out for the best.

Fuckin' love Azaka~!

Everything comes packed in a neat black box with silver writing and this image on the front, small black ribbons allow you to tie it shut.

Exclusive to the US release is this translation booklet for the visual chronicle, the discs themselves come with both English and Japanese subtitles, as well as the little pre-movie shorts with Neko Arc and the puppets.

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Fortunately, the translation is pretty solid, they translated Chokushi no Magan as Mystic Eyes of Death Perception which shows they at least paid attention to the preconceived expectations of what Kara no Kyoukai is to international fans and what it means in having a solid translation. I personally prefer Dirty Red over Disgraced Scarlet, however.

In other news, now that I'm finally settled in at my new apartment, I'm going to try and post a lot more. I'm really sorry about the downtime guys, but things should have a bit of normality now.

-Kageryu