Shooting Star Dreamer

Today is officially Luka Megurine's birthday! I decided to take time out of the day in order to celebrate the birthday of one of my favorite Vocaloid characters, Luka. For more information on Luka Megurine and Vocaloid in general, check out the Vocaloid Wiki ! I also wanted to thank you all for reading this post, and I invite you join me as I enjoy her birthday with music and images! Even if you're not a big Luka fan, maybe you will enjoy listening to her songs and viewing a few nice pictures. Also, if there's another anime character that has a birthday soon, let me know and I will make a post especially for them. This is a great way to promote your favorite characters if they aren't too well known, so please don't be afraid to ask. Thank you for reading!

Sometimes we can live in a world where it's easy to follow the crowd. Anime, being a reflection of our own world, embodies this as well. As in most stories or works of fiction, we have a group of central characters, and lesser characters who they interact with. One key trait that most anime characters have in common, is the daring personality to be different. Although this type of personality is inspiring and amazing to see, what does it really mean to the audience who is watching? We could say that anime is a way to convey thoughts and ideas to people. So naturally, characters may be created in order for viewers to relate to them. Others might serve as a guide or leading force to motivate an audience. With this in mind, we can examine two similarities between anime and the unique traits that the key character possess. The Characters Stand Out When it comes to almost every anime, the main characters always stand out from the rest. Like the image above, there's usu...

Anyone who is part of the Nintendo Gaming Community has seen the tiny figurines known as Amiibo. At first glance, Amiibo might seem like a rip-off. Few people want to spend more money than necessary on a single game. However, when we look at Amiibo and similar merchandise, could the production of such items actually be a smart decision for the gaming culture? If you don't know, Super Smash Bros. is not the first game to make use of Amiibo. Other games that are featured on Nintendo consoles, such as Skylanders and Disney Infinity use a similar mechanic. While Skylanders has it's own unique set of figures, Disney makes use of popular characters from television and movies. I'm not necessarily a fan of these figures, but if you were someone who loved Disney, imagine how much of a blessing this game would be? So if we think of it in that sense when it comes to Amiibo, the appeal is obvious. Super Smash Bros. has a wide variety of characters, and almost everyone who play...

Everyone has a favorite anime, or a list of anime that they really like. While we debate about favorites and sometimes dislike others, I thought it'd be a great idea to share a few of my favorite anime with my readers. It's not only as a way to get to know me better, but as a list of recommendations for those who happen to stumble upon this post. In order to keep this post easy to view and read, I'll just post a picture of my favorites accompanied by a title, a link to the My Anime List page of the anime, and a little summary of why I enjoy it. I'll try to keep these thoughts to about a paragraph of length so this post isn't text heavy.  As forewarning, if you don't like the anime I'm about the post, it's completely okay. All I ask is for readers to respect my favorites. Also, I love discussions, so I would like to hear from people who feel the same or people who feel the opposite. Don't forget to share your favorite anime as well if you h...

Hello everyone! It's been a while since I've made a post, mostly due to the fact that I've been pretty busy. Despite this, I wanted to share something a little different this time around. I finally finished customizing my computer and I've created an ideal anime layout for the time being. The theme of this layout is well, Hatsune Miku. Even though Christmas has ended, the winter months are not over, so I decided to go with a specific Snow Miku theme. This takes advantage of many different tools, custom Windows 8 themes, Rainmeter, wallpaper, and more. I know that I love looking at different layouts and customization, so I hope those who feel the same can enjoy this post. Even if this isn't your kind of topic, please keep reading because you might learn something new! Desktop Layout - Live View Starting with my desktop, I had a hard time trying to find Rainmeter elements that were able to flow with the wallpaper. The wallpaper doesn't have much negat...

Do you ever watch an anime, only to have a feeling of dislike build up inside? How about the time when you picked up a series due to recommendations and it just didn't feel right? When watching something becomes a big headache, should we just say no? Although there are many anime that we like or love, there's bound to be a bad apple in the bunch. The viewer is then given a choice; to continue on or walk away. Now, while there's numerous opinions on the topic of dropping anime, I thought it would be a nice idea to give my thoughts on it. Since this is a problem I encounter all the time, I thought others might be facing the same thing. So hopefully this post gives their minds a little bit of ease. For those who don't know, dropping is basically to stop watching an anime. It doesn't matter what episode you are on, or how much progress you've made, you basically decide that you don't want to finish it. Let's get down to business now. First things fi...

Yeah, I know it's a little late for this post, but better late than never. Last year, I watched a couple of anime series, some I liked and some I didn't. A few stood out above the rest and thus became my favorites. I  hope I can watch even more great anime this year, and have a bigger list than this one. Also, I'd like to say that this list excludes a few anime I haven't finished, so who knows, I might do a separate post for each one. As always, stay tuned! As a heads up, I'm not necessarily saying that these anime were the best. This list is simply built on my opinions only. So if you disagree, please remember that it's okay; you don't have to like these anime. However, I would love to hear your favorites if you have any. Post them in the comment box at the end of this post! I might even try out a few of them! If you're curious of the method I use to determine favorite anime or rate them, it's basically based on my likes and dislikes. If I ge...

Anime merchandise is all around us, from books to posters to figurines. When we purchase these items, we don't really think too hard about the meaning behind them. We don't think about all the work and time that has been put into creating such an object. In fact, could an object be more than an object? Is there really something more to an anime figure, than being just an item? Maybe even a little magic? While many people may say that collecting anime merchandise and having large amounts of figurines is somewhat falling prey to material desires, I kind of see things in a different light. I don't think there is any such object that we own or possess that has no memories associated with it. When it comes to figurines specifically, we have memories of the character or anime. We can reminiscence of the time we bought the figure and the events that had occurred. We might even have flashbacks of our first meeting of the character and how they relate to ourselves. We can...

Recently, I've been hearing a lot about waifu , as well as numerous opinions of them. On Twitter we even have an event called Waifu Wednesday, where numerous people share photos of their anime wife or husband. (Equivalent term is husbando.) To some this might seem creepy, obsessive, and a little depressing. However, is there a bright side to this? Yes, there is a bright side. To begin, I'd like to start with explaining what waifu/husbando actually signifies, in case it's not clear in the introduction. Waifu originates from the Japanese spelling of the English word wife, written as ワイフ in katakana. Although there is an equivalent term for wife that is a Japanese word, many use waifu instead. Now that we know a little bit about the word itself, how about we look at the culture and usage associated with the word? To make things simple, a lot of anime watchers have a favorite character that they immensely like. This character stands out above the rest, and has qualities ...

Good morning and welcome to my first post of the new year. School is starting again for me soon, so a drop in content may be present as I get adjusted to my new schedule. Don't worry, it will only be momentary, and Shooting Star Dreamer will still be active. If anything, I hope for my school days to give me more to write about. (no pun intended.)  So you've probably clicked on this post to find out what exactly is going on when it comes to this Blog Update. As I mentioned before, there's a few things I've been working on besides writing. There's also a lot I have to share with you guys, but I'll break it down.  First of all...I'd like to say that my YouTube channel will be given an overhaul and it's going to be active soon. I'd like to get up gameplay footage, visual novels, and other such things for you guys to enjoy. It would be great if I could also find a way to spread my posts in the form of videos, but I will let that come later. ...