Selamat Hari Kemerdekaan Malaysia yang ke-57!

Happy Independence Day Malaysia!

Just for information for those who don't know, Malaysia gained its independence from the British empire on 31st August 1957, and 2014 will see the 57th anniversary of the celebration. Don't know where Malaysia is? It's in South-East Asia with Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam and the Philippines as bordering countries.

As a proud Malaysian, I pray that my country will always be in peace and harmony with all people from all walks of life, race, religion, culture and political views to come together for a better, brighter future. Together we unite.

Merdeka!

YuYu Hakusho Volume 17 ~ review

Continuing my review for the manga series, here is the review for YuYu Hakusho Volume 17. Attention to those who haven't read the manga (either this volume or previous volumes), this review will contain spoilers on the plot, so please click on another post if you want to avoid spoilers. But for those who have read the manga or don't mind spoilers (this is an old manga series anyway), you may continue reading this post.

So where did we left off? Oh yes, Kurama, Hiei and Kuwabara were fighting with Sensui (the main villain for this story arc) at the Demon world. So what happened to them? Sadly to say, they were losing to Sensui, and badly injured too. To be honest, it didn't look good for the trio. But just as we feel that there is no more hope for them to win, Yuusuke (together with Koenma riding on the back of Buu - Yuusuke's "spiritual" animal) came to the rescue! As revealed in Volume 16, Yuusuke died but he came back to life with more powerful strength. Even though he became stronger and was finally at the same level with Sensui in terms of strength, Yuusuke still can't beat Sensui. They fought for quite awhile and eventually Sensui is defeated. But technically it wasn't Yuusuke who killed Sensui. During the fight, 'someone' managed to take control of Yuusuke's body and unleashed a powerful attack against Sensui that managed to kill him, and that 'someone' was Yuusuke's ancestor who was a demon. And so that was the end of Sensui. His body (and soul I assumed) was taken by Itsuki (Sensui's loyal friend/follower and the only 'family' he had left) to another dimension and, as what Isuki said, they will 'remain together peacefully'.

Such a tragic end for Sensui. But on to the next story arc. After the fight and after all of them returned to the human world, Yuusuke, Hiei and Kurama were each visited by representatives from the leaders of the demon world; Yuusuke with representatives from his own ancestor, Raizen; Hiei with representatives from Mukuro; while Kurama were visited by representatives from his old ally, Yomi. According to legend (which turned out to be true), these three leaders had wage wars on each other for supremacy in the demon world for 500 years. And now Yuusuke, Hiei and Kurama were invited to join the leaders as each of them seek stronger ally to win the war. Surprisingly all three of them decided they would join the leaders respectively which disappointed Kuwabara who felt that they were no different than Sensui and Toguro (past villains of the manga series). How would the fight between these three leaders progress with Yuusuke, Hiei and Kurama joined each team? And would this fight for dominance of the demon world affect the friendship between these four friends?

What to watch? ~ 2014 movies: August

Summer movies season for 2014 is ending soon. What movies that would be released in August interest me the most? Let's check them out!


1. Guardians of the Galaxy

Despite having a big marketing campaign, I found out that some of my friends and family members didn't know that this movie is related to the other Marvel Studios movies like Iron Man, Thor and Marvel's The Avengers. Marvel is a big brand commercially now when it comes to movies and for people to not know the association of this movie to the Marvel brand could endanger its box-office performance. But I would not worry too much, I still think the movie will be a big blockbuster movie this year. We would have to wait and see how it would perform. Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Karen Gillan, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Glenn Close and Djimon Hounsou, Guardians of the Galaxy had been released in cinemas on August 1, 2014.


2. Into the Storm

It's been awhile since we last had a disaster movie. If I remember correctly, the last big disaster movie to hit cinemas was 2012, the end-of-the-world film by Roland Emmerich. This film doesn't have that $200 million budget like 2012 though, the budget for this film is estimated at only $50 million, so I'm wondering how will it perform at the box-office? I kind of like what I've seen so far from the trailers, but people could just view this film as an upgraded version of Twister, the 1996 film, and giving it a pass. But we are getting a lot of extreme weathers around the world these days, so perhaps what's been shown in this movie is not that far-fetched, and that possibility itself would get people interested to see it. But then again, when was the last time moviegoers take this type of film seriously? And so I wonder again...can it succeed? Starring Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies and Matt Walsh, Into the Storm would be released in cinemas on August 8, 2014.

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) 2014 ~ 10 exciting new games (Part 2)

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or better known as E3, is the annual trade show for the video games industry with the 20th edition had just been held on June 10 until June 12, 2014 at Los Angeles Convention Center. I've been browsing the games that we featured there through the videos that were posted on YouTube and listing 10 of the games that had caught my interest. I've already listed 5 of them which you can read in Part 1 of the post, and now let's check out another 5 games in this Part 2. Let's start!


Rise of the Tomb Raider

The Tomb Raider video game series had received much success throughout the years but in recent years had gained new height of popularity with its 2013 reboot game, so it come to no surprise that Crystal Dynamics would once again be developing a sequel to that game and continue the series legacy. I like how the game become much more cinematic in terms of its story telling but at the same time still keeping gamers glued to the controllers with its exciting gameplay. But will this sequel be as good as its predecessor? Hopefully it will. To view the trailer to Rise of the Tomb Raider, please click here.


The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

Nothing much is revealed in this game trailer debut, the only thing shown were a couple of scenery shots of a rural area with hills and rivers, and some guy beating another guy to death (gasp!). The scenery shots kind of reminded me of the game Alan Wake and Silent Hill: Downpour, the loneliness and deserted feeling that it has makes me relate this setting in the game to those two that I've mentioned. I'm not sure if this game is a horror game though like those two, so I don't know what else to think about this game yet. But I am interested to know more. As of now, the game is set to be released in September 2014, so it won't be long until we hear more about this game. To view the trailer, you can click here.