Most Played Songs Of June

Hello lovelies! I know I've been really bad about posting lately, sorry! I'm dealing with a lot at the moment so it's hard to focus on writing things to post. I thought that I would post this so that I at least posted something! Fear not though, I do have some fun posts on the way...whenever I'm able to finish them.

Also I am SO happy that same sex marriage is legal everywhere in the United States! I honestly never thought that I would see the day, but I am ecstatic. I am a huge supporter of gay rights, I have a gay relative as well as some gay/transgendered friends. I am so happy that they are finally able to marry whomever they choose. It's about damn time that they have the basic human right that everyone else had! Finally, someone at the supreme court stopped being ignorant.

Anyway, I listened to a LOT of music to try to calm my nerves this month, so here are the songs I listened to the most as well as some bonus picks for you all to check out.

1. Crystal Kay - Motherland

This song is from the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime, it was a closing song. I love it so much, it is such a beautiful song. It tends to mellow me out so I was listening to it a lot.

2. Mika Nakashima - Glamorous Sky

This song is from the Nana live action movie. It is one of my favorite Japanese songs. This month I dug through all of my Japanese music and added more of the older ones to my ipod. I love belting out to this one so I heard it a lot in the shower this month.

3. New Years Day - The Joker

NYD is one of my favorite bands. I also realized this month that this song reminds me a lot of a person that wronged me. It helped with my rage a lot xD.

4. Black Butler Book of Circus - All Around Player

[I couldn't find a version of just this song, so here's the whole soundtrack. This song is #2 on this video]

I listened to the Black Butler/Kushitsuji OSTs on repeat a lot while reading this month and I have done a LOT if reading this month. This one stuck out to me a lot.

5.  Skye Sweetnam - Number One

In May, I found my giant CD case containing all of my CDs. This one was in there. When I was in middle school, I was obsessed with this album. My best friend at the time burned me a copy and I listened to it on my long bus rides home. This was back before iPods existed. I decided to upload this album to my  ipod for nostalgia's sake and I had listened to this song in particular a lot.

6. Iced Earth - Phantom Opera Ghost

This song is pure badass. It's an old love of mine. Iced Earth is this theatrical metal band. They do lots of long, jam session like theatrical songs. All of the songs I've heard by them have been based upon stories.

This particular song is based on The Phantom of the Opera (one of my favorite movies). The lead singer of the band sings as Eric (the phantom) and a female singer (I don't know her name) sings as Christine. I was first introduced to this song many years ago while I was watching anime videos on YouTube. Someone did a Bleach cosplay skit of Hollow Ichigo and Rukia to this song. To this day I wish I could find that video again.

This is one of those songs that I can leave on for an hour on repeat and still be cool with it, so I listened to it a lot.

7. The Used - Pretty Handsome Awkward

I had a very frustrating month and this is a pretty angry song. It comes from my favorite The Used album, which I rediscovered in May after not listening to it for a long time.

8. Alesana - The Thespian

This is my favorite Alesana song. Shawn Milke has such a beautiful voice and Dennis Lee's voice is a good contrast. Anyway this song is just badass, whenever I'm irritated I just want to blast music with lots of screaming.

9. Three Days Grace - Riot

Gee can you guys tell I was frustrated? This song kind of summed up how I had been feeling and it was really therapeutic to listen to. This is one of my favorite Three Days Grace songs.

10. My Chemical Romance - Demolition Lovers

My favorite band ever. I was listening to their album, I Brought You Bullets You Brought Me Your Love a lot this month. It is their first album. I don't listen to it as much as I listen to Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge or The Black Parade so when I needed the comfort of these wonderful human beings, I listened to this album. I love Demolition Lovers, it's like 2 songs in one. It's calm yet gets intense. I just love it so much.

11. 2 PM - Take Off

This is my JAM! One of my feel good songs. This is one of the EDs for Blue Exorcist. I love listening to this in the car, especially on the highway. It makes me feel like I'm in the closing animation! I once was listening to it in a car, on the highway while it was getting dark out. I totally felt like I was in the anime.

12. Bad Wolf - A Better World

I can't remember if I've mentioned Bad Wolf here before. But I love this band so much. I discovered them because I was following both the lead singer and bassist on Instagram for different reasons...and I discovered they were in the same band! I checked them out and instantly fell in love. Their music is wonderful. Of course their band name was taken from Doctor Who. This particular song features the model/cosplayer/singer Traci Hines (she is the BEST Ariel cosplayer. Check her out) and was inspired by the Hunger Games books. It is such a beautiful song. I would love to cover it someday.

Bonus Picks:

AFI - Beautiful Thieves 

AFI- Girls Not Grey

I honestly had a really hard time choosing which AFI song to recommend to you guys! I love AFI so much. So I chose two songs for you, a newer one and an older one. Beautiful Thieves is my favorite from the Crash Love album. Not their best album but still good! It's just a chill song and it calms me. Girls Not Grey is a classic. It is one of their best songs. I discovered AFI when Decemberunderground first came out, when Miss Murder and Love Like Winter were popular. I became totally obsessed with those songs and Kill Caustic...so naturally I had to download their entire song catalog. Then I listened to them so much my parents became fans too.

The Academy Is... - We've Got a Big Mess

The Academy Is... is an awesome band, sadly they broke up some years ago. William Beckett, the lead singer has such a beautiful and unique voice. This was the very first song I ever heard from this band. Back before when the music channel, Fuse played good music they used to play the video for this one all the time. Oh how I miss the old Fuse ;____;. Those were some good times.

Sister Sin - On Parole

This is a really good song. I listened to a lot of songs I listened to back in middle school/early high school years this month. Honestly it was my favorite era for alternative/rock/metal music especially the 2006ish time frame. This is just one of those old songs hiding out on my computer. It's pretty unique, I've never heard a female singer with a voice quite like this one.



Anyway, there's some music for you all to check out. What have you all been listening to this month? Comment and let me know.

Xoxo

Moon Prism Power, Makeup!

Tokyo Otaku Mode Premium Shop Review + GOT Finale Thoughts

Hi everyone! I apologize for my lack of posts. I have been dealing with a lot of things and have been extremely stressed. My life for three months now has been complete hell. It has been an extremely difficult time. I'm more focused on trying to get my health back to normal than anything else at the moment. So for anyone that didn't see my series of tweets on Friday evening, I am taking a break from twitter. I'm sure I'll return before you know it!


Warning: Game of Thrones spoilers below. The highlighted spoiler alerts are there so those of you that haven't seen the finale can scroll past the spoilers.

Spoiler Alert:

Okay who saw the Game of Thrones finale?? I am STILL fuming!!! What the fuck HBO?  I can't believe that they killed off Jon ;_____;. I literally was crying and throwing things across the room when it happened. After Daenerys, Jon was my favorite character. Seriously....WHAT THE FUCK!!! I'm sure I'm not the only pissed off fangirl. I knew that there would be a shocking death in the finale because we didn't really have any this season. But DAMN did we get some shocking deaths in this episode.

I was kind of sad that Ellaria killed Myrcella. Even though she seemed like a brat (granted she IS Cersei's daughter), she hadn't done anything to make me hate her. I was kind of looking forward to her going home and seeing what would happen with her there, if she would turn out like her mother or not. I'm fairly mad about not seeing Margaery in the finale. I was hoping to see what was going to happen to her. Plus I LOVE her so I am always happy to see her.

I was very happy about what happened to Cersei, I laughed a lot and smiled the whole time. She really did deserve all of that. Lena Headey is a wonderful actress, I can't imagine that that was an easy scene to pull off.  I'm so happy that karma finally got her ass. I also wonder who her new knight is. I hope Arya will be alright, her going blind was a gigantic holy shit moment for me, being a non reader of the GOT books. I have tried to read the books. I made it halfway through the first one. But to me they are so dryly written. Nothing against George R.R. Martin, he truly is telling a fantastic story...I just can't handle his writing style. Luckily there are some cool youtubers out there that compare the books and the show for those of us that can't read the books so I do get some additional information.

I have heard a lot of people hoping for Lady Stoneheart or another character carrying on her storyline. I do know a TINY bit about that, but not much. That didn't happen in the finale, maybe next season. I was absolutely convinced that Benjen Stark  would really return at some point in season 5.

Sansa!!!! I really couldn't care less about Reek but Sansa had better be alive next season. I want to see badass Sansa kicking some ass. Not this forever victim, weakling Sansa. And Daenerys running into the Dothraki again, wow! I definitely didn't expect that. I was very happy about what happened to Stannis. Him allowing Shireen to be burned alive broke my heart, I don't even think the red wedding destroyed me as much as that scene in episode 9 of this season did. He really did deserve it, I did have a feeling that eventually him following Melisandre's every command would screw him over in the end.


Now it's time for me to go weep because we have to wait until next March/April for more episodes ;__________; 10 weeks went by way too quickly.

End Spoiler alert

Onto the point of the post!

Disclaimer: I wrote this review of my own free will. Absolutely no one asked me to write it. I just wanted to share my experience for those that are wary. I was not bribed or paid to write this. All opinions are my own.

 While browsing online I discovered a new (to me anyway) site called Tokyo Otaku Mode. It is an online store that sells various anime merchandise and items from Japan. They are having a promotion where if you sign up via referral link, you will get 10 points ($10) to spend.

Here is my link if anyone wants to sign up:

https://otakumode.com/invite/4800a3

 Again- you only get the points when you sign up via referral.

If you confirm your email you also get a $5 coupon. The best part: you can use either one of these without having to buy a certain amount (I hate when stores make you spend a certain amount to use points/perks you have earned) . For new users there is also free shipping on certain items. So how was my experience with them?

I signed up through a referral I saw on reddit and indeed I received the points and the coupon. Just a note you can't use both on the same order, it's just one or the other.

I found an item with free shipping and went to buy it. I typically buy all of my otaku goods/nerd things from Amazon or Hot Topic. But the offer of free stuff was way too tempting to pass up.

Stupidly I used the $5 coupon instead of the $10 in points...I wasn't aware until after I placed my order that the free shipping on certain items only applied to new users. I thought that I would be able to use the $5 AND the $10 in separate transactions to get some things totally free. Oh well! At least I got something. I am a little miffed at myself though...I really wanted to order a Grell keychain too.

What is nice is with every item on their site, it will show you how many are in stock. It does make me a little wary though of ordering something with just 1 or 2 in stock. But that is something I haven't really seen on any other website.

They also seem to have a decent selection of products. I saw some cool things like Inuyasha and Sword Art Online memo pads that I have never seen anywhere else

I ordered a Kirito keychain for $4.99 and it had free shipping for new users. I'm unsure of the pricing for other items, but this was a really good deal. The same keychain was about $7 on Amazon. Hot Topic usually prices their anime keychains around $7-$10. I have never ordered from Right Stuf (they're another online store that sells anime and Japan related goods. They are extremely popular), but someday I hope to try them out! Then maybe I can compare these two shops.

I used the $5 coupon and I didn't have to pay a cent. Even though my order was free, they did still make me provide payment information. That did make me a little nervous that my debit card may get charged some ridiculous shipping fee. I checked my bank account after my order shipped and I wasn't charged a thing. They do accept paypal as a payment method. However, I tried to purchase this item with my paypal as the payment option and it wouldn't allow it for some reason. I had no other problems otherwise. Their website is also safe and secure.

I placed my order on a Friday afternoon and it shipped the following Monday afternoon. The website promises orders will ship in 1-2 business days and they were true to their word! It shipped via USPS from their California warehouse (they ship certain items from Japan apparently). They sent me a shipping confirmation email that included tracking. I HATE when I order something online and don't get tracking. Hence why every time I order from Jolse I pay the extra $2 to track my order. I don't want my shit getting lost! (I actually had an incident where usps lost my Jolse package...it would've been gone had I not payed for tracking).


It took 3 days to arrive here in Connecticut which is pretty impressive! Half the time when I order something online and it ships via USPS it can take up to a week to arrive.

When I got the box my order came in, I had to laugh to myself. It was a very large box for the small thing that I ordered. I also saw that they shipped my order via 2 day priority. I highly appreciate when people ship my orders that way instead of using the cheapest method possible.

If my mailwoman...yes I said woman didn't know that I was a nerd already...she does now! The boxes that TOM ships orders in has their logo all over it and the phrase "Otaku life" all over the place. I love it though, I'm proud of my otaku status!!

No I didn't order a book. That's just there to cover my address. I don't need stalkers .____. there are some seriously creepy people out there (probably including me. Hehehe). I'm currently re-reading the Fruits Basket series!

When I opened the box, I saw why they chose to send it in one of that size. They put my order summary form in a really cool folder! Please ignore the glare on the folder. It is SUPER shiny and difficult to photograph.

The back of the folder

Seriously, look at that artwork. They also included a thank you card with beautiful artwork and a button. I forgot to take a picture of the card. Oops!

My keychain was at the bottom, not only in original packaging but wrapped again and taped to the bottom so it wouldn't be floating around.

Kawaii Kirito!!! 

Overall, I am extremely satisfied with my experience with Tokyo Otaku Mode. If their shipping prices aren't outrageous I would definitely buy from them again. For me, shipping prices can be a deal breaker. I think their shipping prices vary by order, as I did not see a fixed shipping price anywhere. They do have the option of free shipping when you spend a certain amount...but I think that amount is something like $100.

 I am so very happy with my order, I highly recommend that you try them out!


Xoxo

Moon prism power, makeup!

Yona of the Dawn

Hello internet!  I have returned! I stayed away from my social media accounts as well as this blog for a little while due to some personal reasons.

SPOILER ALERT:

Who saw Game of Thrones on sunday?? That was INSANE! Fucking white walker zombies! I was freaking out so hard. Like full out flailing, clapping, bouncing in my seat and various "holy shits". It was just glorious. Like The Walking Dead on ice. Ironically, 10 minutes before that huge battle I was telling my mom (who watches GOT with me) how I hoped they would show the white walkers this season and have them interact with people. I totally did NOT see that coming!

END SPOILER ALERT

I thought of saving this post for one of my "recently watched anime" features but this show deserves its own post! In my absence I have been binge watching SO much anime. My anime list has also been a big motivator in me finishing up shows. If you would like to keep up with what shows I'm watching, send me a friend request at:

http://myanimelist.net/profile/Lipstickzombie

A few weekends ago, I decided to start watching a new show (well, new to me) called Yona of The Dawn (or Akatsuki No Yona). I was browsing my Crunchyroll queue trying to decide what to watch and I thought that I would give this show a try. I normally am not a fan of feudal era shows (except for Inuyasha. I LOVE Inuyasha!) So I wasn't sure how much I would be into this show.

However, I'm so happy that I took the plunge! I binge watched the entire show all weekend, enduring WAY too many Six Flags El Diablo ads. Have I mentioned how much I HATE the ads on Crunchyroll?? I finally caved and got a free trial for premium after seeing the same ad 15 times in a row made me want to bash my head into the wall. I can be very picky with the shows I watch (especially anime) and I was hooked within 2 episodes. I haven't seen a show that made me want to binge watch and never stop watching since Golden Time.

So, Yona is about a young princess in feudal era Japan named Yona. She is initially a happy, carefree and sometimes bratty girl. Her father a very kind and gentle ruler dotes on her. She is beautiful and in a way, self absorbed. She hates her unruly yet gorgeous bright red hair (I am seriously jealous of her hair!). Yona lives in her father's palace, Hiryuu castle in the kingdom of Kouka and has a bodyguard (who is her childhood friend) named Hak, since her mother was murdered.

Sexy men make everything  anime better *^*.

Hak is sexy as fuck *^*. Hak also has feelings for Yona.

For the celebration of her 16th birthday, her beloved cousin who she looks up to and is actually in love with (hey, cousin loving wasn't all that uncommon back in the day!) Su-Won (can also be spelled Soo-Won) visits.  He was always very kind to Yona, comforting her whenever she was sad. He treated her like a little sister and a child though Yona wanted him to see her as a woman. For her birthday he gives Yona a beautiful hair pin and tells her that he loves her hair.

I wouldn't mind a man giving me that hair pin, just saying!! Haha, seriously though I LOVE her hair pin. I tried to find it online but sadly couldn't find a replica anywhere :(. And seriously....I LOVE Yona's hair! It's a gorgeous pink toned red. I'm pretty sure that Manic Panic's Cleo Rose matches it pretty spot on. Haha I've spent so much time looking at hair dye in my life that I didn't need to look the color up. Yona makes me want to dye my hair that color.

Of course Yona's carefree lifestyle comes to an end when on Yona's birthday, Su-Won murders her father and she witnesses it when she was going to tell her father King Il that she can't get over her love for Su-Won( Her father was previously talking about marrying her off).  Su-Won then orders all of the guards (traiterous assholes) to kill her. Yona thanks to Hak saving her gets away and the pair must remain on the run to avoid Su-Won's minions.

They eventually make it to the wind village where Hak is head of the Wind tribe and is from there. Hak intends to leave Yona there where she will be safe and go off on his own, but the Fire tribe, knowing she is there begins to do things to endanger the villagers. She refused to allow the kind, welcoming villagers to suffer so she insists on leaving with Hak. Hak's grandfather Mun- Deok (can be spelled Mundok..I guess spelling depends on which source you watch it from) tells them to search for a priest named Ik-Su. On their journey they run into some of Su-Won's minions and ultimately fall off of a cliff. They assume that the pair fell to their death. I had to laugh at the fact that the lord of the fire tribe was evil. Gee...where have we seen an evil fire lord before? (*cough* AvatarTheLastAirbender *cough*)

Ik-Su is a clumsy but very generous priest who lives out in the middle of nowhere. Any time he has gold and tries to help people they take advantage of him.

He lives with a boy named Yun who takes care of him. Yun finds Yona and Hak after they had fallen and treats their wounds. Yun acts coldly towards them but grows to like them. Ik-Su tells Yona of a prophecy, claiming to be speaking the word of god. The prophecy goes:

"When darkness falls upon the land, the dragon's blood will restore life once more. In accordance with the ancient pact, when the four dragons gathered, the sword and shield that protect the king awaken. The red dragon will return at dawn."

The prophecy is based upon the legend of the creation of the Kouka kingdom which goes like this:

The red dragon god took a human form, descending from heaven to rule the Kouka kingdom on Earth. He became the first king of Kouka, king Hiryuu. Hiryuu eventually had to fight humans. The humans' hearts turned evil, they forgot their god and their country fell to ruin. Hiryuu was captured by humans who desired power. When he was about to be killed by them, four dragons descended from heaven to save him. They proclaimed a desire to destroy the humans who had forgotten their faith and then return to heaven. But Hiryuu rejected their wish. Though the humans hated and betrayed him he still loved them. The dragons loved Hiryuu and did not want to lose him so in order to protect him they gave their blood to human warriors, granting them strength. One of them gained sharp claws that could tear through anything, another eyes that could see across great distances. The third gained legs that could jump high into the sky and the final warrior gained a strong body that could never be injured. The warriors became the dragons' other halves. Their destiny, to serve Hiryuu as their master and protect him with their lives. With those powers, the warriors were able to protect Hiryuu and bring order to the kingdom. The red dragon eventually grew tired of fighting and fell asleep, which ended the mission of the dragon warriors. In their grief, the dragon warriors left their tribes and dissapeared. Their tribes still remained and became the Kouka kingdom tribes.
Ik-Su tells Yona that she must search for the four dragons of the legend, that they will lend her their strength. He believes that god is leading her on this path.

So along with Hak and Yun (who Ik-Su asks to go with them) she goes to look for them. First they meet the white dragon, Kija. He lives in a village that pretty much worships him.

 His entire village celebrates the fact that he is the white dragon, he spent his entire life waiting for his master to come so that he could use his skills. When he meets Yona, the dragon's blood within him awakens and he knows that Yona is his true master (or I should say king). He had never left his village before, so he is very naive. But he is very loyal to Yona and feels a very strong sense of duty to protect her. He has the power of the dragon's arm.

I truly believe that Yona is Hiryuu reincarnated.

Next we meet the blue dragon. He was shunned and treated badly because of his power of the dragon's eyes. He possesses eyes that could paralyze a person if they look into them. So he wears a mask all the time. He is quiet and shy. He's a tough, muscular man but he's very gentle. He didn't even have a real name until Yona named him ShinHa. ShinHa is so freaking adorable!

                                           I think he may be my favorite of the dragons. Just look at that face!!!!

The third dragon we meet is JaeHa the green dragon. He's a pirate that is very flirtatious with the ladies. He didn't want to go with Yona because he loved his free life as a pirate. He has the dragon's leg.

The last dragon, the yellow dragon is Zeno. Hilariously enough he was randomly wandering in a forest. Yona and Yun find him and he was starving. While eating, he nonchalantly divulges that he is the yellow dragon. We don't know all that much about him yet. But he is clumsy. So far he doesn't seem to show any sort of special power and he didn't feel the awakening that the other three dragons felt.

As the anime progresses, Yona becomes stronger. She starts as a weak, sheltered girl and becomes a warrior. She was tired of being useless and not only wanted to be able to defend herself, but Hak as well. Night after night she would practice with a bow and arrow, shooting 200 arrows a night. Though not physically strong, mentally she becomes determined. She fights for what is right and acts like a true and good ruler. Watching her growth made me so proud. She turned out to be pretty badass! I grew to love her so much. She could have remained a sheltered princess and hidden for the rest of her life but she didn't! She kept going and she learned to fight. She rose from tragedy and became a stronger, better person. Sure she does cry and get upset throughout it but that's what makes me admire her even more. She picks herself up through the tears and keeps going despite that. I love that they made her slowly begin to be able to help out and defend herself, rather than keep her a defenseless princess that needs protecting.

I also loved the progression of her going from caring so much about her appearance to not caring. In the  beginning of the show, Yona was shown as being very into her appearance. She would request various jewels and high quality makeup from her father. She was very worried/conscious about her hair because it would never do what she wanted and she hated the color. But during a battle, she allows her hair to get cut and from there she stopped worrying about it and worried more about surviving. I thought that this was some great character development. And don't worry Yona you're still gorgeous <3.

I found myself relating a lot to Yona and I really admire her. When I lost my father, I had to become strong and grow up quickly. I had to be there for others so I needed to pick of the pieces and continue on.

Because of this show, I definitely learned the Japanese word for princess, Hime as the characters call Yona Hime-sama quite a bit. Seriously...we could make it a drinking game. I love it when I pick up random words in other languages when I watched shows subbed. -Sama is a more formal honorific used in the Japanese language and it's shown as a sign of respect. I love the way Sama sounds. Though I prefer the title of Khaleesi I like how Hime-Sama sounds.

I loved the opening songs. The first one is basically Yona's theme which you do hear throughout the course of the show, it is instrumental. It's very fitting. The second is a song by Cyntia called Akatsuki no Hana.  I thought it a bit odd for this show at first but I grew to love it.  As for the closings, I usually skip past the EDs on anime.

There is an English dub available for this show. I'm unsure if I'll watch it or not. I do prefer dubs to subs...but I heard that Monica Rial voices Yona. Nothing against her, I do enjoy her work but I can't see her voice fitting Yona. I personally saw Cherami Leigh voicing her. This was disappointing for me...I love Cherami Leigh (AKA Asuna and Sailor Venus) so much. She is my favorite female voice actress.

Overall, I loved the shit out of this show. Seriously, I'm hooked. There had better be a 2nd season and a 3rd season after that. I need more!! I am so tempted to pick up reading the manga not only because I loved the anime so much, but I love Yona. This is a show I feel even my non anime watching friends would enjoy. I wish someone would cosplay as Yona in an Akatsuki (Naruto) uniform. That would be pretty funny punny! Get it? Akatsuki no Yona!

XOXO
Moon prism power, makeup!