maid maiden : monday

MAID MAIDEN : MONDAY
artist : Kaoru
genre : shoujo, romance, drama, comedy
language : Bahasa Malaysia
release : 2010 - ongoing
score : ***1/2

INB4 TAIGA AISAKA HIJACK~!

i may not look like it, but i'm a big fan of shoujo stuff, and when it comes to malaysian works which stirs on the shoujo waters, kaoru were among those that i had put high regards on, both for her art and her excellent story crafting in most of her works to date, especially on this one.

so it was last thursday that i saw a copy of this wonderful graphic novel at the convenience store [ 7 eleven ] i'm frequenting to, and decided to grab a copy of it since i've been following the said series for a bit while on gempak, albeit i've missed the first 3 chapters as i wasn't quite a loyal reader of the said magazine [ i personally enjoy starz a bit more before its premature demise ]. i was happy with my purchase, and after 2-3 re-reads of the above graphic novel i've decided to write a brief something on the said book here at +ophanium.

maid maiden follows the story of alivia, a freshman student at adam gordon high which actually is a school for the elites [ a staple plotdrive in most shoujo stuff, no ? ] whose only reason for enrolling into such prestigious school was to lurk for her 'mysterious prince charming' whom she had met years back in the prologue. as in some other shoujo dramas we've seen and read then, alivia came from a middle class family, and although her condition are set to worse as her parents were ruled out as bankrupts prior to her enrollment into the school [ thus almost putting down her hopes of attending there ] still lucky for her that she had fatefully [ more precisely, by accident ] met the son of the school's chairman on her very first day, of whom agreed to sponsor her enrollment with several conditions on his sleeve of course.

the plot / story, well it's a little bit predictable [ from the way i see it ] but still i love how the story flows, and frankly said i find it to be a bit better than kaoru's previous epic work 'helios eclipse', with bits of comedies [ between alivia and bennett ] were thrown every here and there as to spice up the storytelling mood. kaoru's art [ as always ] pleasantly captures the shoujo essence well; the way she designed her characters [ the maids' dresses / costumes were very well-elaborately designed, and i'm very much happy on that ] as well as the surroundings certainly mirrors closely those that i have seen from them japanese shoujo mangaka. still on the art matter, there wasn't much apparent improvements between maid maiden and her previous offering [ helios eclipse ] but still the quality of the latter were magnificently brought forward and sprinkled with a tiny bit of sugar and spices so to make this new offering of her tastes just as yummy as her previous' was.

there's still a few more volumes to go, and thus i shall save my complete review for when the series wraps itself up later :3

...

oh, and in case you are interested in giving maid maiden : monday a try, feel free to click here to either learn more details about the book or to put your order for a copy of it. and no, i didn't get paid by gempakstarz to put this one overview up lol, i know some of you will be having such thought dancing in your head >E

[ cosplay ] midori kanda ft. sue : to aru kagaku no railgun

layer : Midori Kanda and Suu / Sue
character : Kuroko Shirai and Kazari Uiharu
series : To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
score : *****

IF ONLY MIDORI-SAN DOES AN SATEN v.v

...but a kuroko is fine too, especially since midori-san has pulled on a great job cosplaying as the said chara here, complemented with a superbly magnificent uiharu cosplay by the highly adorable suu-san of course; these two has yet to fail me when they got paired up together, and i definitely can't wait to see their next pairing-get in times to come :3

divinely impressive as always, and once again- two thumbs up and a [ hall of ] standing ovation for the two^^

[ all images are property of kimokamehiro ]

[ cosplay ] riyo ft. banko : touhou project

layer : Riyo and Banko
character : Sakuya Izayoi and Remilia Scarlet
series : Touhou Project
score : ****1/2

WHEN TOUHOU COMES TO LIFE

quoting our dear chief editor, zange-chan when she first saw these a few weeks ago; "oh god, magnificent !". and yes, she isn't the only one who's in awe, for i certainly am as well, indeed :3

brilliantly magnificent, and i have nothing more to say on these two layers for this touhou cosplay of theirs - save for those two words; well i could repeat them over and over again but that would only [ disturbingly ] litter this post here with more than enough / necessary praising for the two layers' splendid presentation. that aside, okay so now the only thing i am a mildly dissatisfied here is that banko-san could have worked a bit further on remilia's wings by having them to stand out more with twice more elaborate detail than how they were in the pictures; still aside from the wings everything indeed were nicely done - especially riyo-san's elegant take on sakuya. yeap, definitely.

hime is compassionate. despite of the not so well done wings the pair get to keep the 1/2 point for their score :3

[ all images are property of muki ]

[ cosplay ] ibara ft. megumi natsume : shuffle !

layer : Ibara and Megumi Natsume
character : Lisianthus and Kaede Fuyou
series : Shuffle !
score : *****

just when i thought that we've had enough cosplay feature for the past weeks, an idea suddenly came stroking my mind - 'say, why not we put up some duet cosplay features for a change ?'. personally, i wasn't quite fond of such idea but since we hadn't had anything new for a while i guess this would be the nicest way for us to make up with our dearest regular readers who might've been patiently waiting [ we doubt there's any :3 ] for new updates to be posted like every month :3

that aside, i believe some of you might have seen ibara-san's lisianthus cosplay from our earlier days then, too bad i didn't get to write a much more elaborate overview on that [ well i was still green at blogging at the time :3 ] so perhaps i could take this chance to redeem myself for that [ though i promise i'd rewrite that post of mine with a much more elaborate comment later on ].

as you can see from the pictures shown above, both ibara and megumi-san had put on a nicely worked on costumes for their cosplay [ looks like both's were either bought from cosplay boutiques or commissioned from highly trained tailor as the costumes looked pretty much identical in production quality :3 ] and both layers fits in well with their respective character; not a single inch of their presentation inspired a look of disapproval from me, although ibara-san's wig could've been worked a little bit more for added punch :3

oh wait, i didn't get to see the elven ears from ibara-san [ remember; sia is a god, with pointed ears in the series ] v.v-- now should i scrape 1/2 point for that, naah. there's no need for that :P [ inb4 bias ]

intermission : of late add-ups and the spring to come

sorry for the late add-up[s] but the latest volume to akiko-san to issho ! and amakusa moyou na is now here for you peeps to leech upon :3 was supposed to put them up when they first came out a few months back but somehow procrastination and forgetfulness has been keeping me from doing so, thus i am deeply sorry if there was any of you who might've waited for them to be shared here v.v [ well it's not like this is the only place on the internet where you get to find em, unless you're google-inept xD j/k ]

so what are ye waiting for ? go fetch em liek nao~! :3

now for a random note; spring is coming anytime soon and everyone's been writing on shows they'll be following to once the season hits the door. myself, however are more content to sit and wait until i had my eyes on the spring series for a much better evaluation on my side - though i must say that there are some titles which pre-emptively caught my attention from just the teasers / promotional material circulated so far, and among these titles were working !, angel beats [ since it comes from the creative team of key's i am sure this would fit nicely into my taste ;3 ], mayoi neko overun ! [ i could use another 'teana' for my next waifu- ], k-on !! [ i warmly love the first so why not indulge in the sequel as well ? :3 ], kiss x sis [ don't ask ! xD ], house of five leaves [ manglobe-get ! ] and heroman [ bones + stan lee, i'm intrigued :3 ] just to name a few.

[ h-manga ] encode !

[ click here to download ]

ENCODE !
mangaka : Jingrock
book : ?
release : 2010
chapter : 1 of 1
score : ***1/2

here's a nice eromanga presented to you by jingrock-sensei, of which upon few close inspection had inspired us to think of this as none other than a parody of the manga / anime k-on ! since the female lead of this story somehow closely resemble everyone's favorite bassist mio akiyama. well there is nothing remarkable from the story, it's your usual 'girl got into a scene she shouldn't been to, and later got done in by an old pervert you wish you could step in and stab a knife through him' kind of plot, yet somehow something about this manga really turns some people on, especially the [ very much ] well done art.

[ dojin ] futabu !

downloads : [ volume 01 | volume 02 | volume 03 | volume 04 | volume 05 | volume 06 | settings ]

FUTABU !
circle : Askray
genre : futanari
derivative work : original
release : ongoing
volumes : 5 - ongoing
score : ****1/2

FUTAWESOME CHAIRMAN-GET, [ AND SHE'S MINE- ]

and so i present thee [ courtesy of our dear scanlators saha and ryuunotamashii of course ], my number one favorite futanari dojin of all time, futabu !. okay so this futalicious original dojin by askray basically is a slice of life story of the futabu [ futa club ] members and their newly acquired non-futa, normal girl freshie who seems to be of a great 'fit' for the existing four club members *grins* - you go figure out what that word 'fit' means by reading all 5 volumes of the dojin, with d/l links provided above for your personal convenience / pleasure as always :3

coming from askray / bosshi, the art as expected is of lovely quality [ save for volume 4, where the pages were presented / drawn in sketchy lines much to the mild dismay for some fans ] and the story were nicely tailored much to my delight and amusement, eventhough it relies heavily on the erotic theme which drives the whole story of the work. the character design were splendid, and i personally find all 5 members of the club to be of my liking; not to mention the varying attributes of their respective futaness also bring much spice and uniqueness [ if not THAT unique ] to the whole premise.

complete review on the series will be following soon. right now i am mentally tired to pull out some tl;dr stuff for the time being, so sit back, download all 5 volumes [ + 1 special extra ] and enjoy the futalicious treat :9

intermission : hime writes on kozue aikawa / 愛川こずえ

kozue aikawa / 愛川こずえ is one of the three members for the japanese dance group danceroid, and were among the many internet dancers that hits nico nico douga [ and youtube ] in the prime of the miku miku dance phenomenon. like many others, she's often covering routines and moves from japanese dance pop artistes such as morning musume up to those specifically choreographed for MMD.

technically, her videos are mostly made of [ excellently ] magnificent performances as well as jaw dropping moments that has been keeping me glued to both her nicovideo and youtube channels since, +not to mention that you can obviously taste her passion in dancing from both her moves and expressions - which is why i have been greatly in love with her videos above the rest.

my [ ultimate ] favorite performances of her would be love & joy [ a dance pop single by yuki kimura, later choreographed for miku hatsune in MMD ], kimagure princess [ by morning musume ] and strobe nights [ by livetune, ft. miku hatsune ], the latter of which was filmed on a green screen and were later creatively edited by them nicovideo folks.

[ taken from her magnificent routine for love & joy, based on the choreography for MMD ]

frankly i'd love to share some select videos of her here, however since i have a great dislike over youtube's embedded video player design [ which is why you have seen none of them in +ophanium :3 ] so i have decided over not to do so, but you can always drop by her nicovideo / youtube channels below :

[ nicovideo channel | youtube channel ]