Your Lie in April, a Japanese animation series bravely endeavored into the musical world, and then got lost

Its subtitle says it all, “I met the girl under full-bloomed cherry blossom, and my fate has begun to change.”

YLIA

To be more explicit, the life of the piano prodigy and protagonist Kosei Arima turned for the better while the life of the girl he met, violinist Kaori Miyazono was taken by chronic disease.

Most Japanese animations with such a prominent pair of “he” and “she” easily reduce to mere lengthy chronicle of the chemical reaction in between, maybe a little bit more dramatic as this is a life-and-death plot. Yet the 22 episodes of Your Lie in April seemed much more peaceful as the plot would otherwise suggested, as that girl and violinist Kaori’s constant smiles and positive attitudes had been guiding our protagonist boy, who overcame the death of his mother and summoned strength to go back on stage, while leaving audiences half a year of colorful symphonies. When the series ended with Kaori looking back at all her memories with Kosei in a letter, many said they burst into tears.

I didn’t.
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Flight (2012), a movie with heoric scenes and prolonged bathroom breaks

flight

The plot of Flight is easily summarizable: an alcoholic pilot went to work drunk, a heroic pilot saved his plane from mechanical failure.

After some tense scenes in the cockpit for the first half an hour of the movie which ended in a crash landing, the pilot, Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), met Charlie Anderson as the pilot union representative and attorney Hugh Lang, who helped him deal away with detrimental evidence and guided him through NTSB investigation. He met and helped heroin addict Nicole Maggen along the way. Yet in the final NTSB hearing, where he no longer felt comfortable lying, admitted the truth that he’s drunk during the flight.

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Ajin season 1, an animation series that transcends its peers

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Usually, I got to know a movie or a TV series by its trailer or word description, which very often give me a reliable impression of what it is, and more importantly, how good it is. That’s not the case for Ajin, which impressed me with its OP. I know songs don’t usually speak for the quality of the overall work, adding to that, it’s actually a human vocaloid of its OP parodying the infamous fertilizer Jinkela. To me, this is just the first thing unorthodox about the Ajin series.

The plot of the Ajin series is not the most fascinating. After being hit by a truck, protagonist Kei Nagai discovered he is actually an Ajin, a species that would automatically regenerate soon after death. Being hunted by authorities, Ajin went on the run with his best and only friend Kaito…
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Flight Log of KN2252 DAT-NAY on May 15th, 2016

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Weekend Trip to Datong, Day 2: Mount Heng

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Weekend Trip to Datong, Day 1

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Short Trip to Tianjin

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Flight Log of MU5680 KHN-PEK on April 10th, 2016

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Flight Log of MU5458 PEK-HGH on April 8th, 2016

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