2 weeks in Taiwan : Introduction, arrival

En français
On the 20th of March I left for Taiwan without too much preparation. All I really knew was that I was going to stay with one friend and possibly meet with some other during the 2 weeks of my stay there. I didn't do any preparation so I didn't know what to see. I kind of left so suddenly that I even forgot my toothbrush and at to get a new one when I arrived.
I arrived in the early afternoon and went for coffee with my friend before going to her place. After not seeing each other for 2 years we had a lot of time to catch up.
Travel table of content

여름향기 (Summer scent)

En français

여름향기 is a Korean drama in 20 episodes from 2003.

Shim Hye Won is suffering from a heart deceases and had had a heart transplant few years ago, she can then live normally and run as she always wanted. She has been raised by her parents' friends and is now to be engaged to their son Park Jung Jae. Yoo Min Woo's love Soh Eun Hye died few years ago in a car accident and he never could managed to forget her until the day when he falls in love with Hye Won who behave strangely more like Eun Hye than like herself.



I like especially the music in this drama and the fact that Hye Won's heart recognizes Min Woo, it's like loving without reason just because your body is telling you that it's the right thing to do even when everything else is against it. Love doesn't need to reason to be here, it just needs to be felt. I can totally understand why Hye Won and the people around thought that she was becoming crazy but it's not the heart that made her a new person behaving differently than her own self, it's love itself.


Casting :
 송승헌 as Yoo Min Woo (가을동화 Autumn tales, He was cool)
손예진 as Shim Hye Won (외출 (外出, April Snow), 천년여우 여우비 (Yobi, the five tailed fox))
류진 as Park Jung Jae
한지혜 as Park Jung Ah (B형 남자친구, My boyftiend is type B)
신애 as Soh Eun Hye
조은숙 as Oh Jang Mi
안정훈 as Ji Dae Poong
김해숙 as Yoo Min Woo's mother (겨울연가 Winter sonata, 가을동화 Autumn tales)

Cinema, Manga, Animation Content

Earthquake in Japan : My own experience

En français
So many people around have so many questions about the Earthquake. Some are far away from Japan and only see the damage caused on TV  and get scared about what is going on around here. So I guess I should actually write something about what happened to me the past few days. My experience of the Earthquake wasn't terrible, so I hope people are going to be reassured a bit reading this.

When the Earthquake started I was in Haneda airport. It started to shake and it was getting bigger every minutes and was a lot longer than the little Earthquake I experienced previously. Feeling an Earthquake is not so bad actually. You are just shaken. I was looking around and seeing lamps and shelves shaking until someone told us to get on the floor and protect our heads under the sits. We stayed like this until the end of the shaking and then sat on the floor laughing. I wasn't laughing of relieve for being ok, I think I didn't really realized the danger, because I was ok and everybody around was ok too. I guess it stroke me only when my friend panicked and started to try to call everybody to see if they were ok. I'm not really good at panicking, I'm not really good at seeing the bad things that can happen actually. I guess I just takes the problems when they happen, maybe that's why.

Then we started to walk around to go shopping because we didn't really have anything else to do but the airport life was dead. We ended up on the floor a bit again because of the Earthquake replicas, but still then there was nothing too bad. The phones wouldn't work, they were giving information about the buses and trains that were not functioning anymore. Then the planes started to work and my friend went to take his and I tried to find a way back to Chofu but there was no use. So I had to prepare to spend the night at the airport. At that moment I kind of felt really weird. Everybody seemed to be talking about the Earthquake, the way to go home, contacting families, walking around to get food and drinks and I just sad on the floor to read and write about something totally different. I don't know why I'm like this, it's not that I don't care, just if there is nothing I can really do to help I guess I just go back to my normal self and do my normal stuff. They started to give blankets but I didn't go get one, I think that because there is not enough, it's better to leave them to other people with kids or something, also it wasn't that cold and I had my coat and stuff. But in the end a guy came to give me his because he was trying to get a taxi. I wasn't the only one without but he gave it to me, even though I'm not Japanese or anything.

Then I tried to get electricity for my computer and that was kind hard but soon I started to get organize with some other people and we managed to get recharge of battery for everybody around. I don't know why I got to tell people where to plug things, I mean they weren't my things or anything, just it happened that way. And people coming to me to talk about the Earthquake and to see if I had internet but I couldn't manage to get it.

I managed to sleep for few hours anyway. I was really dead tired. Then it was time to go back and I tried the buses first, some where running but not mine, so I had to take the train. There was a huge queue and some kind of traffic started to get organized to tell us when to go and stuff. That was really impressive how so many people could actually work together.
I took the monorail to go to the loop in Hamamatsusho, the loop was supposed to be running but it didn't really. After waiting 2 hours in a train that was supposed not even to take me the all way, I got pissed and I decided to walk those three stations . At first I wanted to go to Shinagawa but there the station was really full and it was difficult to get in so I continued to walk to Ōsaki which was actually genius idea as from there I could just take one train after the other to get back to Chofu. When I arrived I just had a good shower and slept for 18hours.

Here are some pictures of my sightseeing on the way back.
Travel table of content

1リットルの涙 (one liter of tears)

En français

1リットルの涙 is a Japanese drama from 2005 in 11 episodes. It is based on the diaries of Aya Kito who was diagnosed with a spinocerebellar degeneration decease at age fifteen and fight against the decease until her death at 25 years old.



Aya Ikeuchi is a brilliant student and play basketball for her high school team. One the day of her exam she meets Haruto Asō who helps her to get to school. They end up being in the same class but Aya starts to have problems with dropping things and falling down regularly alarming her mother. After a visit to the hospital, Aya is diagnosed with spinocerebellar decease. The nerves in her body are paralyzing one after the other making her loose control. Soon she has to quit stop the activity she is used to as walking, writing and even talking becomes more and more difficult. As everybody turn slowly away from her due to her condition, Asō stay by her side despite his father disapproval.

This drama really wear its tittle perfectly because it really made me cry.  This decease is really terrible because it takes everything away really slowly and the patient has time to see it coming. Even 23 years after Aya's death, there are still no cure for this decease.

Casting :
澤尻繪裏香 as Aya Ikeuchi
錦戸亮 as Haruto Aso
成海璃子 as Aya's sister
>薬師丸 as Aya's mother

Start watching here. 
Cinema, Manga, Animation Content

Pieces of my heart

I know I haven't been posting much lately, I could give reasons but the true sad fact is, I have been procrastinating on writing my daily blog post.
However I haven't been procrastinating on this other project. Normally I would give the explanation and then let you discover the video but this time I think you should enjoy it first.



This is my very first animation movie. It is called "Pieces of my heart" because I wanted to make a puzzle for someone to built up and this is the first part of it. I'm not sure about the complete story, I'm not sure how many pieces there will be, I don't know the ending. I just hope people smile when watching it.

It didn't turn out completely as expected but I'm still pretty happy with it. It took me a month from conception of the story board to final touch.

I did all the drawing on ms paint, creating the backgrounds from a picture, and the characters and putting the pieces together was done with photoshop. The video editing was done with windows movie maker.
I'm also the one playing the piano terribly during the movie.
The introduction and conclusion music is from The "Letter song" by Hatsune Miku.

Creating the characters involved a study of movement and I know I still have some work to do about it to make it more natural. I also spotted some other mistakes that I will be taking care of in the next animation more carefully.

Screening of "Tilaï"

En français

On Saturday 5th, before the start of the 22nd Panafrican Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou, was organized in JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) in Tokyo the screening of "Tilaï" a film from Burkina Faso. I went there with some friends including one frocm Burkina Faso who introduced us to the ambassador of his country.
"Tilaï" (the law) is the story of a forbidden love between a man and a woman belonging to someone else. It shows the relationship within an African family, the love and the proud. This film received the jury price in the Cannes festival in 1990.
We also good try some juice from Burkina Faso before a series of question about the experience some people had in Burkina Faso.

Hibiscus juice called Bissap.

Cinema, Manga, Animation Content
Travel table of content

エンジェルビーツ (Angel beats)

En français

エンジェルビーツ is an anime series in 13 episodes directed by Seiji Kishi which appeared between November 2009 and May 2010.

After his death, Otonashi arrives in a high school for young souls who refused their death. The students are divided in two categories, the NPC some computer programmed students who are here to show people how to behave and are followed by the normal students and the Afterlife battle front and of course Angel. When people behave correctly forgetting their past life, they disappear to be reborn. The Afterlife battle front is fighting against the system as they cherish their past life no matter how hard it was because it was real. Their main enemy is Angel. But things are not that simple as Otonashi figures out another wait to be erased from this world and God is still nowhere to be seen.



I think this anime is really great. I like the how the story link all the characters together in the afterlife and give details to their past life. I also enjoy the war between Yuri and Angel, the research of God
and the desire of revenge present in most characters, especially Yuri. My favorite secondary characters are Hinata, Naoi and Yui probably due to the way they are interacting with each other.
Start watching here.
Cinema, Manga, Animation Content