Seeing red

Is She U.N. Owen?” is probably the best-known piece of music from the vast Touhou Project, ((except possibly for “Bad Apple“)) and you can find innumerable versions in every style, from orchestral to nightcore, on YouTube. I stumbled across the one above recently while looking for something else.

Another version of the tune, impressive yet ridiculous.

Incidentally, “U.N. Owen” is not “Death Waltz.” This is “Death Waltz:”

Release the penguins

Update: Yet another version of “U.N. Owen,” this one by Floating Cloud.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VpNvGNRlFaE

Odds and ends

Steven on fansubs:

Even disregarding the price, the sad fact is that the product delivered by the fansub groups via torrents is better than what we can buy. It’s more timely, and the quality is higher, and the resolution is better, and it’s more comprehensive.

I wish it weren’t so. I would rather buy than steal. But two years ago it reached the point where it didn’t feel like virtue to be honest. It felt like being a sucker.

Even as big as the anime market was in North America three years ago before everything fell apart, we were still being treated as second class citizens. Usually there was a delay of between 1 and 3 years before titles got released here, if they were. And what we got was 480p, which these days looks like a postage stamp to me. (Especially on my 1920*1080 computer display.)

Continue reading “Odds and ends”

Miscellaneous silliness

Ubu watched Linebarrels of Iron so you don’t have to.

*****

“This is either going to be a laugh riot, or I’m going to want to hurt somebody.”

The one in pink is Sherlock Shellingford, not to be confused with Sherlock Holmes.

Just wondering: what exactly does the word “milky” signify to the Japanese?

*****

Here’s the second-most impressive Touhou video I’ve seen: ((The most impressive remains this one.))

Then there’s this:

*****

I enjoyed The Triplets of Belleville — one of the few movies I’ve seen in a theatre this century — and I’ve been waiting impatiently for Sylvain Chomet’s next movie. Unfortunately, The Illusionist is apparently a disappointment.

*****

Can’t get out for your morning run because of the weather? Crank up your organ and dash through Chopin’s “Revolutionary” etude:

(The 19th-Century Czech pianist Alexander Dreyschock played this piece with left-hand octaves, which is at least as impressive a stunt as this.)

(Via Frëd.)