Category Archives: technology

3D Printing and Me

  By Halfey Halphstein | March 17, 2013 - 10:08 pm | , , ,
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Until recently I’ve never thought of 3D printing would be useful for me. Although consumer products already appear in the market they are still very expensive and still above the affordability range of most people. What I read in one local IT magazine earlier this month however changed my mind about it and now I’m planning to get one once the price has dropped to the similar point as laser printers (which were also very expensive in the last decade that only offices bother to buy them).

An ORDbot Quantum 3D printer.

An ORDbot Quantum 3D printer.

There are many types of 3D printers but I’m not going to explain each one of them because that is not why I’m writing this. Currently I’m still learning about them so that I’d be able to pick the one type that suits my need. So what do I need them for although I’m not in the prototype modelling field or work?

LC1305651670 LC1305651738 LC1305651802

Yes, one of my intentions is to make my own gunplas or super robots! Man those ready-made robots are just too expensive to sustain as a hobby so I was thinking if I could make one myself then wouldn’t that be a better option? Besides by ‘making’ them myself I could customize them as I please even before they are ‘printed’.

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Of course my ultimate goal is to ‘print’ my own nendos and figmas! Once I have a 3D printer the only thing I’d have to do is to master CAD (good thing there are many good and free CAD software I can use out there) as well as how to put together them together. After that the only limitation I’d have to overcome is my imagination. Let’s hope that the ‘ink’ is not too expensive or it would have no economical advantageous over a ready-made toys.

One thing I’m pretty sure right now is it’s more economical to make uncolored ‘printing’, similar to how it is more economical to do monochrome printing over the colored ones. For me that is not really a problem either because I can always use the Gundam paint/marker for colors. I’m not sure how long I’d have to wait until the price becoming more affordable but let’s see if it will drop significantly in 5 to 10 years time.

[Not anime] One of the two Apple products that I don’t hate

  By Halfey Halphstein | September 20, 2012 - 10:33 pm | , , , ,
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Earpod


Earpod

With the launch of the iPhone 5 comes Apple’s new audio piece named Earpod. This Earpod will come as a standard earpiece to future iPhones and iPods from iPhone 5 onward (say goodbye to the ‘old’ white iPod earphone). The best part about it is it is also available as a standalone purchase, reasonably priced at US$29! At such price I could not complain much other that I’d have preferred my earpiece to be a snug-fit one (to block all ambient noise) but as long as this one can perform good then I can accept it. After all the best sound from an earpiece always comes from something bigger than the snug-fit type, which is to say the best would be the ‘proper’ headphone from the likes of BOSE or Sennheiser or similar. Anyway I might order this one soon although I’m no longer an iPhone user. So far I’ve seen mostly positive reviews about this earpiece and I must say it is treated differently and well accepted if compared to Apple’s other audio piece, the old iPod Hi-Fi.

iPod Hi-Fi

Remember iPod Hi-Fi? The short-lived overpriced piece of ‘junk’? I do agree about it being short-lived (retail availability from February 28, 2006 to September 5, 2007 only) and overpriced too (if I’m not mistaken it costed around a grand!) but I’d not go as far as saying it was a junk. Of course for that price one might be better to get one of Bang & Olufsen‘s speakers and even offerings from BOSE and Altec Lansing would sound better (at a much cheaper price too). I’m not really an audiophile type but I’m the kind of person who loves to make a collection of speakers (headphones/earphones included). I’d like to confess that the amount of money I’ve spent for speakers/earphones/headphones alone since year 2000 could allow me to buy several Macs and iPhones! Anyway one could say that iPod was another Apple’s failure under Steve Jobs reign (it’s not just overpriced, it was badly priced!). Anyway I still want one.

Those are not the only speaker products by Apple. Remember the cute speakers for the Mac G4? Not sure how they sounded though but I did not include them here because I don’t see them as ‘real’ speakers. I mean they worked on USB connectivity only instead of utilizing a proper audio cable that connects to a speaker jack, and on top of that it only worked on Macs only. Macs were pretty late in joining the audiophile camp (even Intel came up with their Azalia HD audio in 2004, 2 years before they started powering Macs!). No thanks to Macs’ absence of upgradeability so if you’re really into PC hi-fi you’d better build your own system.

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[Not anime] Introducing the iPhone 5, now with 5 times more suffering

  By Halfey Halphstein | September 14, 2012 - 12:13 am | , , , ,
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It doesn't want to lose to your penis in terms of length.


It doesn’t want to lose to your penis in terms of length.

Yes you’re reading it right. iPhone 5 is here (almost) and we can expect to see people trading off their ‘old’ 4GS in order to get Apple’s now expensive toy. What I deem as interesting however is, in a move that was seemingly unlike Apple, they introduced a phone with 4″ display, breaking the tradition of the 3.5″ that comes with the previous models. However instead of making the phone bigger in both width and length to accommodate this new display size, unlike Android phones, Apple choose to retain the width as the last model, resulting in a noticeable longer phone than its predecessors, and that itself resulting in people mocking the future iPhones will become even longer, in the similar way people ‘praising’ the “super phone” Nokia 3310 (though in the case of Nokia 3310 it was done in a way of giving it a credit for being a real tough phone).

Anyway I must praise Apple for being able to fit a resolution of 1136×640 into such as ‘small’ display real estate while most Android phones only manage to have ‘only’ 1024×600 on a similar display size. Well for me a pixel density of 250 to 300 dpi is enough to make the texts on such display feel like they’re on printed media. Therefore a few more pixel per inch is not really necessary but only looks more like marketing bait rather than being a really useful feature. In other words it doesn’t add anything to the phone’s functionality. However I must again praise Apple for being able to keep the price as the same as iPhone 4GS despite the improvements on this new model which includes LTE as well.

Speaking of LTE now must say Apple is no leader in technology as we’ve seen Android phones equipped with 4G/LTE/WiMax around for quite some time now, although they were the first to bring Thunderbolt to consumers from their latest MacBooks. I guess this was related to them trying to find a workaround to implement LTE as not to violate any patent. IN the Malay tradition, there was a saying “afraid of own shadow” which literally means one is afraid of being a backfired by his own wrongdoings. Apple indeed created many enemies resulted from the lawsuits they filed all these times so it is no wonder if they are worried about it biting back at them again. And by the time of writing I heard Samsung is ready to file a lawsuit against Apple for violating their LTE patents.

This iPhone 5 is great but not as groundbreaking as I would expect because from the specs and features as exposed during and after the launch, it only made me think “Meh! It’s just yet another iPhone”. In fact I found Nokia’s launching of Lumia 820 and Lumia 920 last week was far more interesting and “feels closer to my hand” than this iPhone. Now I’m waiting for Apple’s next announcement/launch related to the rumor “closer to the truth” about the iPad Mini. For this I think one could mock it as “the real oversized iPod” and if there was a 3G model one could even say “iPod 3G”. By the way I think I’ll just ignore the iPad Mini because I am actually looking forward to the launching of Microsoft Surface next month. Maybe the MS Surface won’t have a 3G/4G model at launch but I think that’s OK since it has full-sized USB ports and it’s Windows-powered so there’s a high chance that the currently available USB 3G dongles could work on it as well.

[Not anime] Finally, a Windows Phone Nokia that I’m fine with

  By Halfey Halphstein | September 7, 2012 - 12:32 am | , ,
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Lumia 920


Yesterday Nokia has announced their first Windows Phone 8 device in the form of Lumia 820 and Lumia 920.

Lumia 820

This time those Windows Phones no longer feel backward as they’re now sporting better tech specs, making them on the same par with other hi-end phones, if not better. With Windows 8 Phone, those Lumias now featuring dual-core CPU and HD display (Lumia 820 doesn’t have HD display though) which were noticeably missing from the older Windows Phones.

Lumia 920

Those new Lumias also feature wireless charging out of the box as well supporting memory card expansion (Lumia 820 only) which is the first for the Lumia series. My only complain would be the name PureView being used in marketing the Lumia 920 because it’s not PureView at all, it’s just a trademark. So far the only competition comes from Samsung Ativ S (also a Windows 8 Phone) which was announced last month and carries similar specs as Lumia 920.

I’ve always have problems with Windows Phone in the past due to the limitations that comes with it (like not supporting multi-core CPU, no HD graphics, no memory card) so those phones have changed my view a bit but until the units are available I will remain skeptical about its usability and functionality. Pricing for all Windows 8 Phones is yet to be announced at the time of writing though.

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[Not anime] I don’t mind

  By Halfey Halphstein | August 8, 2012 - 10:27 pm | , , , , , ,
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iphone-guy



My first ever “web comic“.

Oh no, don’t get me wrong. I have no intention to rival The Oatmeal (if that’ is what you think I am doing), and I am not expecting this to be circulating into a meme either. I’m just doing this to show you my perspective as someone who used to have an iPhone, before I committed myself to Android.

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[Not anime] Windows sucks, and so does Linux (Why I’m still using Windows)

  By Halfey Halphstein | July 25, 2012 - 11:27 pm | , , ,
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guilty-life-time-linux-os-pc-microsoft-bad-fault-irony-fun-u-demotivational-poster-1253382772


I found that both Windows and Linux are equally suck. Neither one of them is better or superior to the other. Because of that then my choice would be based on the users, where the one with nicer users win. In this case I found Windows users are nicer than most Linux users I’ve met offline/online because they have no emotional attachment towards Windows, neither they are loyal. They use it not as a fan but as a user, they don’t think they’re special for using it. Name-calling, flaming, trolling is pretty much non-existent among them when it comes to Windows-related discussion.

Among Windows users they rarely compare Windows with Linux for the sake of saying Linux is bad. They have no reason to do that and they don’t have to. Linux fans usually say “Windows breaks on a frequent basis and it’s Windows’ fault. In Linux when things break it’s your fault”. This is bullshit. Whether the system breaks by itself or we broke it, the point is we’d have to take care of it whenever something broken, regardless it’s Windows or Linux. Linux is no special in that sense. Unless it can fix itself, I don’t think there’s anything in Linux that I can brag about and feel proud of.

Windows sucks is not enough of a reason for me to give it up completely, let alone to switch to Linux. I see Linux is equally sucks so there’s no point in switching to it. Linux may not break by itself (assuming that Windows does break itself that often) but even if it’s our own fault that it breaks it would still as frustrating as in Windows when that happens. My experience in Linux is there is no such thing is everything runs perfectly the first time upon installation. Whether it’s Linux or Windows both would require a certain level of manual configuration at some point. Taylor-made, cookie-cutter system like Mac OS X is an exception but it’s not accessible by the mass.

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While I’m waiting for Summer 2012 Anime… (We’re recruiting!)

  By Halfey Halphstein | June 30, 2012 - 10:22 pm | , , , , , , , , ,
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Picture probably unrelated but it's Christina so there should be no problem.


Picture probably unrelated but it’s Christina so there should be no problem.

Many things happened since last week. First Microsoft announced their first “in-house-made PCs” or more specifically tablets named “Microsoft Surface Pro” and “Microsoft Surface RT”. They look beautiful to me and the most important thing is they don’t look too similar to iPad. The tablets invited mixed reactions where some (including me) appreciated it while some others hate it for various reasons. For me not knowing the price, the battery life and the launch date is not a reason to hate it as I can always wait and see. Besides just announcing doesn’t hurt my pocket and my planned purchase.

In the last few days Google on the other hand announced their take on tablet business by launching the ASUS-made “Nexus 7″ which immediately made available for purchase after the Google I/O event. For me Nexus 7 is more like a competitor to the existing 7″ Android tablets like Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook rather than iPad. Alongside that they also announced another Nexus-branded product which is the “Nexus Q” streaming media player, together with the recommended premium-priced Triad bookshelf speaker. I’m not interested in that player but if I got the money I’d get the speaker for sure.

With both Microsoft and Google already have their own tablet hardware let’s not forget about another company that is new to this tablet business. Vizio, one of the major household names in the US when it comes to LCD TVs are making their own PCs that look as beautiful as Macs if not prettier. For the first time I feel Macs now have a serious competitor that even longtimers in the PC business failed to achieve that reputation. They are also making tablets but so far the focus is more on their laptop and desktop offerings. Now I wonder if they would make their way to this part of the world.

And the tech thing that happened to myself this week is I was offered a broadband speed upgrade by my ISP (TMnut) to 4Mbps. I accepted the offer but not after I trolled them good for about 10 minutes, citing their various failures like the capping in their UniFi packages. They told me so far none of their existing customers have exceeded the allocated download volume limit ever since the introduction. I told them that’s bullcrap because if the ‘higher’ product (UniFi) comes with a limit that it’s ‘lower’ counterpart (Snailmyx) doesn’t have then it means the product isn’t worth getting for.
Oh do you remember sometime last year and earlier this year where I wrote about customizing my own smartphone and tablet? Well now I have another new interest to add to the list, which is to play with the reduced-sized ARM-powered computers, now that ‘toys’ like Raspberry Pi, FXI Cotton Candy and Pandaboard are getting closer to my hand. I hope more of these ARM ‘PC’ being made so that Microsoft would reconsider their decision of not selling Windows RT (ARM version of Windows 8) as a standalone purchase, unless they don’t mind Android dominating that market too.

About anime, yeah most of Spring 2012 titles have ended this week and we’ll be watching Summer 2012 anime starting next week. This spring I enjoyed titles like Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, Sankarea, Haiyore! Nyaruko-san, Acchi Kocchi and a few others, including titles carried from winter (Aquarion EVOL). Titles like Shining Hearts and NazoKano will end this week too (the finale for those series is not available yet by the time of writing). Other than that, Mouretsu Pirates, another title carried from winter will have its finale aired by tonight and I’m going to see Chiaki-chan again (^_^)

Speaking of ‘pirates’….. for now I’m happy with me being able to watch anime almost as the same time as it was airing in Japan. Earlier this week Apple has launched iTunes music store in my country after so many years waiting. The only problem is I can’t purchase anisongs from it without registering to the Japanese iTunes music store. Of course I could always register by using the iTunes prepaid card and use a random Japanese address but it shouldn’t have been that tedious! Record labels nag about piracy but then they never make it easy to get although I’m willing to pay! Bullcrap!

By the way do you have a blog? If you do then I would like to have a link-exchange with you. If you don’t have any then I’m inviting you to become a co-blogger at my blog. Currently I have only one co-blogger and I’d like to expand that number. I don’t set any particular requirement to become my co-blogger; as long as you’re interested and passionate about it then it’s enough. You may also give it a try by becoming a guess writer first so if you’re thinking of joining my team then reply to this post and I’ll guide you to the next step. Note: you may write about things other than anime/manga/games.

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[Not anime] A certain mobile device with the ’7′ moniker but doesn’t come with Windows Phone 7

  By Halfey Halphstein | June 28, 2012 - 10:50 pm | , , , , ,
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A device with the '7' moniker but powered by Android "Jelly Bean". I am jelly.


With most of spring anime have finished airing and while waiting for the next summer anime title to start airing, I decided to write about this new gadget that is just revealed yesterday. Before I go into details about that new high-tech toy I must say I’m not into the summer anime “Kingdom” which already had its 4th episode aired by the time of writing (the character design is just not my type). Back into the gadget, it is none other but the freshly baked “Googlet” (Google tablet) named Google Nexus 7.

A device with the ’7′ moniker but powered by Android “Jelly Bean”. I am jelly.

Made by ASUS, this is tablet is beautiful in terms of looks and build quality and kudos to ASUS for keeping up their reputation with the release of this new toy. Sporting a 7″  (thus the “7″ moniker) 1280×800 Corning glass display, 10hrs of web browsing/e-reading, powered by a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU and pre-loaded with Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean”, this is perhaps the most powerful 7″ tablet so far. However the device is quite a “crippled-down” one if it were to be compared with the offerings from Samsung and the likes.

The first thing I’d look for in a tablet is the availability of a microSD card slot, which this tablet has none but to only rely on its internal storage (8 or 16 GB available). That much is not bad but I could customize it by myself I would make it with 4 GB internal memory plus 32 GB expandable via microSD card. After all with it supporting memory card it could virtually support unlimited storage capacity because the only limit would be how many memory card you could carry at one time.

Another thing that is missing is there is no 3G/4G version available which is quite a turn off factor for me though they might have not considered it to keep the price down ($199 for 8 GB version). Other than that there’s no back-facing camera present, though it wasn’t a big deal to me but then with the announcement of Microsoft Surface more than a week ago I changed my mind a bit. There are more than one way to use a back-facing camera on a tablet despite that thing is too huge to be a real picture snapper.

For example Microsoft have mentioned about how the back-facing camera would be useful in a meeting where you could even record the meeting itself if you wanted to. I on the other hand imagined that if I were an interviewer recruiting new staff for my company I could use it to record the footage of the interview itself. For now I think I want Microsoft Surface better but considering that this is a reference design for Android Jelly Bean tablet I think I could ignore all of its shortcomings.

The so-called “the world’s first social streaming media player” that looks beautiful but can’t do much by itself.

At the same time Google launched their first streaming media player named Nexus Q that is just yet another streaming player but with a spherical shape and integrated with Google Music (as one would expect). By my definition it is nowhere close enough to be called a media player because it has no control and no display to know what’s playing. The only way you could control it is via your Android phone/tablet as it has no playback control and the only thing you could control is power on/off and the volume.

Ports for “banana” audio plugs, network, optical S/PDIF, micro HDMI, micro USB, you name it.

Other than the audio/network/power related ports at the back of the player unit I’m not sure what exactly the micro USB port is for. I sure hope that it means there’s a way to control this device from a PC interface because although I have an Android phone it doesn’t mean that I’m happy with that as the only way to interface with it. Well for its design/shape there’s no way to put a display on it though because hey who’d want a spherical display even for a small computer like this?

Yes it is a computer because you know what, it is powered by Android 4.0 (ICS) and comes with 16GB internal storage (priced at $299). For me the only acceptable reason of it using Android is to allow it to interface with Google Music, Google TV and Youtube but you can’t play Angry Birds on it. If only it was designed to come with a dock so that it could connect to a touchscreen display and act as an Android desktop (now that would be cool).

Google recommended the premium-priced Triad bookshelf speaker for this baby, meaning that the speaker they recommended is pricier than the player itself (or as much as the player + 1 Android device to control it). Another accessory they recommended is the audio cable with the “banana” plugs with length tailored to fit the player’s unique shape. All are available from Google Play store but as the time of writing it is only available in the US (typical ‘evil’ Google).

So will I get the player too? Even if I have money I don’t think I would buy it or any “streaming player” at that because I can’t imagine a situation where I would need it. Just like games, audio is also pretty much a personal experience to me and I am not compelled to share let alone stream my stuff even if it means sharing with friends and family. Well I’m able to say this because my preferences are always different from nearly everybody I know so I’ve got used to it.

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[Not anime] The surface of the surface (This month in tech)

  By Halfey Halphstein | June 27, 2012 - 11:01 pm | , , , ,
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surface_05


If I were to list down the hottest tech trend in June I’d spontaneously say “Microsoft Surface and Vizio PC”. Yes, both companies that are known for something else has just ventured into a business a bit different from what they used to do before. Microsoft known with their software (mainly Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office) ‘upgraded’ their hardware business by making their own computers while Vizio, know for their LCd TVs are making computers as well.

Microsoft is no stranger when it comes to making their own hardware but all these times it was about making computer peripherals and not a full-fledged PC itself. I have nothing against it because, say what you want but the Surface is beautiful to my eyes, it didn’t fool me into thinking of it as an iPad, and more importantly I’m ready for the Metro UI no matter how suck you think it is. I even used Metro UI on Android phone thanks to some launcher apps for bringing it to Android users.

According to Microsoft, they’re aren’t really happy with some of their partners (OEM PC makers) included crapware in their products which resulting in “bad Windows experience” to the end users. I’m not sure whether this was true or sincere but I could think that Microsoft has always had to allow it or otherwise Windows won’t sell. The truth is Windows sales come mostly from OEM so it’s understandable if Microsoft always tried to keep a good relationship with OEMS all these times.

Now that they are making their own computers Microsoft can have full control in delivering the “Windows experience” to the users as what they intended it to be. With that said they would be facing Apple as another company that is senior in tight OS-hardware integration, something that Apple has done extremely well. Now if only Microsoft could give it a right price and at the same time not locking out DIY-ers I’m pretty sure these Surface tablets would take the world by storm.

So how about Vizio? I must say for the first time in my life that I feel a non-Apple PC maker sporting a PC design comparable to the beauty of Macs, if not better (I personally think they’re WAY better than the half-assed efforts shown by Dell Adamo and the likes back then). Too bad by the time of writing the page for computer in Vizio’s website was down (and I don’t want to use images found outside of their website) so there’s no sample image to be found here.

Before I end this I’d like to announce that Google+, the social network I primarily use now will be having its first anniversary which is just around the corner. I can’t remember the exact date (despite being one of the first few earlier adopters), and despite how awesome it is if compared to Facebook, I must admit that it is still a ****ed-up social network in many aspects. It’s not a failure but if they keep up with their stupid censorship policy then I wouldn’t mind if they’re doomed to fail either.

Dear Google, make this your doodle on G+’s anniversary. Thank you.

By the way sorry for 2 weeks straight without Hyouka review. I’ve explained why I didn’t write one last week but for this week’s episode, despite it was a good watch I found that there wasn’t any scene worth taking snapshots (I’ve always maintained that I need awesome snapshots to help in my reviews). I’m no fan of that smaller-eyed senpai and I’m not a fan of Chitandawg either so I had to give it a pass but I promise I’ll write a review again provided that the next episode has awesome scenes.

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[Not really anime] Of new theme, seriousness and moe (Sengoku Collection ep. 11)

  By Halfey Halphstein | June 15, 2012 - 11:40 pm | , , , ,
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[FFFpeeps] Sengoku Collection - 11 [10bit][249B3D50].mkv_snapshot_11.57_[2012.06.15_18.15.31]


With the new WordPress version, the time has come for this blog to have a new theme as well. Actually this has been planned since last year but I always have the trouble looking for the fully customizable theme. This time I’ll just use the modified version of “The Akiba – Danny Choo” theme which is already undergone 50% of the modification process.

Of course my greatest dream for blogging is to develop my own blog platform but with my limited programming skills that is impossible. WordPress is good but it is still quite restrictive in doing things right out of the box for me. The only reason I still using it is it is the best standalone blogging platform so far as it is backed by the largest plugins and themes developer community.

I must say most of the so-called “customizable WordPress themes” out there are deceiving or misleading in their claims and descriptions, like saying everything was customizable although most of the times it only applies to header and background. Another thing that made it sounds misleading is most of the time customizations are only available via CSS editing (or even template files editing) which is not what most people would expect. Being customizable should be having drag-drop element support, adjustable height-width and not relying to FTP to replace theme-related images.

Currently I’m still trying to develop my own WordPress theme but by the time I  finished I think the Mars would already be colonized.

There’s no new anime for me to watch today except for Sengoku Collection ep. 11. The last time I wrote a review for this show was for episode 04 but that doesn’t mean I have lost interest. In fact I still manage to watch it on time, and the real reason for no review is that I planned for a series summary once this show finishes.

The latest episode carries the similar serious plot to episode 04 but lighter and the only bloodshed was fake blood. I don’t mind with the seriousness and I could I say I love it like that as it feels fresh and does not restrictive in plot progress. Too bad though not everybody are able to accept it that way just because it was beyond their expectation of moe and stuff.

I’m always fine with moe but it doesn’t mean I would like to see everything moe. If you ask me what is moe I’d say it’s similar to a feeling of you seeing babies or kittens. In my place we have something called ‘geram’ which is quite similar to moe (and in this state I’m living in we have another situation called ‘rindok’ which is also similar but the usage is a bit different from ‘geram’).

For me Sengoku Collection is already cute enough even with one or two serious episodes in between. Honestly the seriousness doesn’t affect how much I enjoyed the series either, it even made me want to see more. Now if only haters could stop hating and complaining about it.

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