Japan Rocks!

New month...new post. Seems to be the way with me. Sorry I don't post as often as some of you would like. Not much has changed since my last post. I went to the DC United game last week in which David Beckham finally made his MLS debut. It poured rain, but fortunately my seats were as close as they could be to the field but still stay underneath the upper deck so I didn't get wet. United won, which is always a plus. As long as the players stay healthy, I can see us going all the way this season.

This Sunday is Projekt Revolution. It's probably my most anticipated event of the summer. Not only do I FINALLY get to see Linkin Park in concert, but I also get to see My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday as well. I'm so excited. I plan on getting to the Nissan Pavillion around 1 or 2, and letting the alcoholic debauchery begin until the end of the concert that evening. It's gonna be great.

So to the main topic of this post. I'm not a huge Anime fan or anything. I've seen Akira and Ghost in the Shell movies. That's about it. While all my friends got hooked on Naruto and Bleach, I maybe watched like 3 episodes. But lately, I've been watching this new series airing in Japan called "CLAYMORE". Man, this show is awesome!!!! Without giving too much away, here's the basic concept. There's a group of evil monsters called Joma. They can morph and take the form of humans and they prey on humans. The only way to stop them is to hire these warriors called "Claymores". They are probably called this because of the giant swords they wield. Claymores are half human/half joma. As a result, they can use their joma energy (or yoki as it is called) to detect and fight these monsters. The only catch, is that as you expend yoki, you run the risk of going over your limit. At this point, you yourself turn into a joma. So all Claymores eventually turn into joma. But in the meantime, they kick butt and protect all humans. The show is awesome. I know, Nicky Long you're a geek. Hey, call me a geek all you want, this show is tight. I wish I could be a kid growing up in Japan. Their tv shows are vastly superior to ours. If you don't believe me, check these out:

Claymore:
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/3/2887

Bleach:
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/listings/3/181

Ninja Warrior (badass show about athletes trying to complete a near impossible obstacle course. The twin US gymnastics brothers, the Hamms, could not complete it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1anoHXphvas

Kinchan no Kasoh Taisho (dunno what it means, but it's an awesome game show where people win by doing creative human art skits. You may recognize it from clips such as "Matrix Ping Pong"):
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2105