Music Spotlight: Taeyang – Wedding Dress

I normally cover songs you may not have heard of before, or rather ones that fall in the indie spectrum, and general obscurity. But this one is a good candidate for those who have just gotten into K-Pop, especially in the current BTS era (or Generation 3, for a veteran such as myself–more to come in another post). One of my favorite K-Pop groups is BIGBANG, which I’ve followed since their debut, and one of the members is Taeyang who released one of his memorable solo singles of his career in 2009.

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Interest Treasures: The Unusual Journey of Yang Joon Il

Many of you are probably into, or at least heard of, the latest K-pop acts such as BTS, TWICE, BLACKPINK, and Stray Kids. But there is Yang Joon Il (Hangul: 양준일), a solo artist who made his debut at the very beginning of the 1990s, and who was largely ignored by the Korean media because of his approach to the norms of the era.

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Centaku Media Journal: Episode #06

As we finally catch a break from all the excitement in the previous two episodes, we talk about the Life-sized Freedom Gundam being built in China, a mysterious Dragon Quest title to be announced in Shonen Jump, and fans of a globally popular (and probably obvious) K-Pop group appear to be defending their group a little too much. Sanjo-chan also talks about the results of the Community Poll for the next anime series to watch for a future podcast episode.

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Centaku Media Journal: Episode #01

Trying something new for the podcast, although this is not entirely new. The “Centaku Media Journal” has been seen through a couple of formats: published on the original blog as “The CEN.TAKU.ME Journal”, as well as attempted for opening our weekly gaming livestreams. This will be a feature published on a bi-weekly basis to accompany the monthly episodes, highlighting the latest news in the anime, gaming, and Japanese and Korean entertainment industries. This way the main episodes won’t be as long as the pilot episode. ?

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Channel Surfing: Welcome to the NHK

The anime Welcome to the NHK (or NHK ni Youkoso! in Japanese) is a series that caught my attention back in 2006 when it first aired. It was also one of the first anime series I wrote about on an anime-centric Blogspot blog “NAKIME” before Centaku Media was launched the following year. And what inspired me to revisit the anime is all due to the current events of the Coronavirus, aka COVID-19, where it is strongly urged to limit social interactions, better yet–not leaving the house at all, whether quarantined or not. Although this anime has nothing to do with the current situation, it’s a timely opportunity to look at the life of a shut-in, for better or worse.

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Conventions and Events Postponed or Canceled Due to COVID-19 Outbreak (Updated)

Update 4/5/2020: Due to the current impact of the outbreak, I have not been able to keep up with the events that have been delayed. But it is safe to say that many events scheduled between April and June have been called off. However, I will check in to relay news of conventions and events happening beyond June based on the level of the virus activity. Stay safe, everyone!

List updated on 2020/03/16 @ 7:45 PM US Eastern Daylight Time

All of you are aware of the current turn of events surrounding the outbreak of the Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, that has amassed over 120,000 cases of infections throughout the world. As a result of the virus’s lethal effects based on varying conditions of the patient, many large public gatherings are being postponed or canceled for 2020 in an effort to contain the virus.

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The Seoul Searching Chronicles: 5 Takeaways From Seoul

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series The Seoul Searching Chronicles

Thank you for sticking around the blog and for following the Seoul Searching Chronicles series! As a bonus, I wanted to post my thoughts about my recent trip to South Korea, and talk about some things that I would really, really like to see in my home country (although that is easier said than done, as the thought of it wouldn’t “make any sense” to us Americans).

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