Saturday, October 30, 2010

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle AMV: Yuzurenai Negai

Happy Halloween! I unfortunately was not able to complete Chapter 67 of New Trials, but here is just a little something to pass time. Edit; I reuploaded the video for higher quality (Youtube butchers video quality these days) and added translation annotations to the AMV.


AMV: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle - Syaoran's Unyielding Wish
Medium: Sony Vegas Pro 8
Song: 「ゆずれない願い」 "Yuzurenai Negai" - "Unyielding Wish" (Magic Knight Rayearth Opening Theme 1)
Singer: 田村 直美 Masaaki Endoh (Jam Project) 
Album: Enson2 ~ Cover Songs Collection Vol. 2
Composer/ Original Singer: 田村 直美 Naomi Tamura
Romaji: Takayama Miyuki at animelyrics.com
English Translation: Takayama Miyuki, Wish-chan. I wanted to create the "best translation" though I don't know if this is that. The original translations by Takayama Miyuki from animelyrics.com were very good, and I referenced that heavily, but there were some lines that I cross-referred to Korean translations for. 

tomaranai   mirai wo   mezashite
yuzurenai   negai wo   dakishimete

Aiming for the unstoppable future
and embracing the unyielding wish

umi no iro ga akaku somatte-yuku
mujuuryoku joutai
kono mama kaze ni sarawaretai

The color of the sea is being dyed crimson
In a state of free-fall... [No gravity condition]
I want to be swept away by the wind like this.

itsumo tobenai HA-DORU wo
makenai kimochi de
KURIAshite-kita kedo
dashikirenai jitsuryoku wa
dare no sei?

I've always cleared impossible hurdles
by this feeling of not wanting to lose, but
whose fault is it if it's still not the best I can do?

tomaranai   mirai wo   mezashite
yuzurenai   negai wo   dakishimete
iroasenai   kokoro no chizu
hikari ni kazasou

Aiming for the unstoppable future
and embracing the unyielding wish,
I'll hold the unfading map of my heart up to the light.

dore dake nakeba asa ni deaeru no?
kodoku na yoru
hajimete genkai wo kanjita hi

How long do I have to cry before we meet in the morning?
The lonely night...
The day I first felt my limitations.

kitto, koi ni ochiru no wa
mabataki mitai na
isshun no jounetsu dakedo
ai ni tsudzuku sakamichi de
tsuyosa oboetai

Surely, falling in love
is a momentary passion like a blink of an eye, but
on the uphill path that leads to love,
I want to remember my strength.

tomaranai   mirai wo    yume mite
kuchi wo tozashi   hitomi wo   hikarasete-kita keredo
motto ooki na
yasashisa ga mieta

Dreaming of an unstoppable future,
My mouth was shut and light shone in my eyes, but
I was able to see an even greater kindness.

tobenai HA-DORU wo
makenai kimochi de
KURIAshite-kita kedo
SUTA-TO RAIN ni tatsu tabi ni
obiete-ita

I've always cleared impossible hurdles
by this feeling of not wanting to lose, but
whenever I stood at the start-line
I got scared.

tomaranai   mirai wo   egaite
ude wo nobashi   kokoro wo   hiraite
Sketching out the unstoppable future,
stretching my arms out and opening my heart

tomaranai   mirai wo   mezashite
yuzurenai   negai wo   dakishimete
iroasenai   kokoro no chizu
hikari ni kazasou

Aiming for the unstoppable future
and embracing the unyielding wish,
I'll hold the unfading map of my heart up to the light.

I worked on this AMV on and off for the past month as it's been about a year since I made my last TRC AMV, Saga~This is My Raod. I initially was making another AMV, but somehow I ended up with this one instead. "Yuzurenai Negai" or "Unyielding Wish" aka "A Wish that Cannot be Yielded," was the opening theme song of the first CLAMP anime I ever saw, Magic Knight Rayearth, and till this day probably remains in my top 5 favorite opening themes of all time. I first saw this anime back in 1996; Magic Knight Rayearth was one of this anime that I knew immediately, simply from watching a 10-second trailer, from the first notes of the opening theme song, that I knew I was going to love. Fantasy, drama, romance, mecha, pretty girls, a bishounen male cast, beautiful music; this anime packaged everything I loved. Sometimes, the theme song completely represents the anime, and "Yuzurenai Negai" is a song that does that.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle initially seemed to follow the format of Magic Knight Rayearth, three individuals (well, plus an unconscious Sakura) journey to different dimensions for a mission, especially when the three mashin from Rayearth are used as Syaoran, Fai and Kuragone's kudan. I like this version of "Yuzurenai Negai" by Masaaki Endoh even better because his voice really compliments the guitar riffs and captures the exhilarating vigor of the song, whereas Naomi Tamura's original version captures more of the wistful tone (check out the acapella version; it's very beautiful as well). I thought the lyrics really suited Syaoran. Masaaki Endoh is from the Jam Project, a group of talented musicians who often participate in anime projects. Part 2 of the video is a trailer with Yoko Kanno's "Prologue F," my favorite bgm from Macross F. I was going for a "movie trailer" effect, or TRC (what everyone thought it would be) in 1 minute. And of course, I couldn't resist putting the orchestrated version of "Yuzurenai Negai" for the credits. A sign that a theme song is a good theme song is when the orchestrated version is even more beautiful. I remember hearing the "Yuzurenai Negai" strings version on one of the latter episodes of MKR Season 1, at an age when I wasn't really aware of the function of background music, and that tune to me was the most poignant thing about the whole anime. I was thrilled to find the MKR OST years later. I think I sometimes enjoy making the credits sequence more than the actual AMV. 


The most difficult part was gathering all the different episodes sub-free or cutting out the subtitles (the process took up much memory on my hard drive). But besides that part, making AMVs is very enjoyable process to me and I usually end up being much more appreciate of the production and thought that went into creating each frame of an anime, and I end up picking up a lot more details than I would just passively watching that episode. For example, I didn't really notice how much emphasis was put on "holding hands" in the anime. Having somewhat of a hand fetish, it was interesting compiling all these clips. When I make an AMV, I try to tell a story rather than just paste together a random assortment of clips to music. The last TRC AMV I made, Saga, was intended to relay sort of the epic nature of TRC, which is why I focused more on the OVAs which is post-Clone!Syaoran revelation. I wanted to make another AMV which focused more on the prototypical adventure-theme aspect of  TRC, which represents the earlier half of TRC, back when everything was jovial, spirited and happy, aka before the Record Arc. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is a manga which I think really has two parts and the atmosphere and tone of the manga drastically changes from the Tokyo arc onwards. I bet I wasn't the only one who felt cheated upon learning that the "Syaoran" that we all grew fond of through the course of the manga and anime was a "clone." It's been a year since the manga ended, and I am still grappling to really understand the totality of the manga and waiting for xxxHolic to perhaps tie up some more loose ends. Somewhere along the way, TRC switched from the typical shounen adventure to a twisted Jungian philosophical study of character archetypes where are hero pulls a Jekyll and Hyde. I still hold my belief that though CLAMP tricks us in the end of the TRC manga with a pseudo-happy ending for "real" Sakura and Syaoran," aka the Tsubasas, it doesn't change the fact that Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is the chronicles of "Clone!Syaoran" or to me, the original Syaoran, the hero (or anti-hero) of this story. Anyhow, I hope this AMV helps recall happier times.

I also included the English lyric translations on my other TRC AMV, Saga~This is My Road. The two AMVs are meant to be viewed together, "Yuzurenai Negai" as Part 1, "Saga" as Part 2, as they sort of counterbalance each other and represent the two faces of TRC for me.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

The New Home of New Trials: The History of Wish For a Star: A CCS Shrine

Many apologies for the fiasco last week when revolutionhosting.net officially closed down after 7 years of business, leaving the website inaccessible for a couple days. Luckily, I was able to get in touch with Robert Arrowsmith, formerly from the revolutionhosting.net team, who speedily responded and has very kindly agreed to continue hosting Wish For a Star: A Card Captor Sakura Shrine on his newly opened web hosting business at http://www.robswebsites.com. The good news is, the website remains as http://wishluv.revolutiohosting.net, less confusion that way. Thank you very much for all of you who have expressed concerned and offered help; I was very touched by the support, and this whole business was a very educational experience. Robert kindly moved all my files to the new server and has set up an account for me at robswebsites, making a very smooth transition, and I am very excited for a new beginning, a new decade more of New Trials! 

So once more, many thanks to Robert and http://www.robswebsites.com for hosting The New Trials of Card Captor Sakura!!!

This whole experience has been a spring-cleaning reminder for me, and I thought it would be interesting to draw up the history of New Trials on the web.

The History of New Trials Website Timeline


Fall 1999 - As a 13 year old, I began writing the New Trials of Card Captor Sakura, Syaoran and Friends. The first couple chapters of New Trials was sent to three or four Card Captor Sakura fanfiction sites that could be found on anipike.com, all of which our no longer in existence to my knowledge.


Fall 2000 - I first created Wish For a Star: A CCS Shrine, a site dedicated to Card Captor Sakura and my fanfiction at the now defunct as of 2010 geocities.com. Old-timers will remember the days of exceeding bandwidth and geocities being down to much of our chagrin. Kirei Blossom pointed out to me that an archive of the site can be found at http://www.oocities.com/wishluv/index2.htm


October 2000 - Digidynasty created an account for New Trials at fanfiction.net and maintained the account till 2006-ish, followed up by Amethyst Beloved who maintained the ff.net account until late 2009, when I took over uploading chapters. The 26th marked "Wish-chan's" 10 year-anniversary on http://www.fanfiction.net/u/23409/Wish_Chan.


August 2003 - Bilal from revolutionhosting.net kindly offered to host Wish For a Star: A CCS Shrine and thus created the account of http://wishluv.revolutionhosting.net. For 7 years, I had wonderful hosting at Revolutionhosting.

February 4, 2004 - Kirei Blossom opened up the Yahoo Group: The New Trials Ring, home of all discussions relating to Card Captor Sakura, CLAMP, fanfiction and New Trials at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newtrialsring and remains administrator of the group with Selenityshiroi.  


January 2008 - Began posting fanart up at http://wishluv.deviantart.com.

February 2009 - I started a blog at http://wishluv.blogspot.com to post New Trials updates and other various information, reviews and commentaries. 


October 17, 2010 - Revolutionhosting.net officially shut down without notice, throwing me into a state of panic. I looked into many different server options and everybody had been very helpful via Yahoo Group, this blog, email and Facebook. I got in touch with Robert Arrowsmith who was a part of the Revolutionhosting team. He had opened up a new web hosting service site at http://www.robswebsites.com and kindly offered to continue to host wishluv.revolutionhosting.net with the same conditions as I had at revolutionhosting.net, even retaining the same domain name. Robert is the awesome hero who moved all my files over to the new server and even preserved my old stats from revolutionhosting and deserves a holler of thanks. 


October 27, 2010 - An FTP account has been created for me by Robert at http://www.robswebsites.com and the move is complete. The website address remains at http://wishluv.revolutionhosting.net and is now hosted at robswebsites.  



Looking back, it seems like fall-time has generally been an eventful period for New Trials. Because of the impermanence of the web, I think I've learned that it's important to have multiple back-ups of everything. It's bittersweet thinking that New Trials has been reborn three times already in the past ten years. First as a nomad fanfiction being hosted on other CCS fanfic sites. Sadly, I don't even remember what they were called because they no longer exist. Then the first home at Geocities, which disappeared earlier this year. Revolutionhosting also is gone. Now, New Trials is in its fourth home, fourth arc, and I am very excited and dedicated to bringing about the finale of New Trials!


Music Spotlight du jour is another oldie from the nineties (which doesn't seem so long ago to me). This whole experience has been about planning ahead, but ended up being a trip down the memory lane. You know those songs that seem to transport you back in time to a certain period? This song was the theme song at my junior high Semi-Formal (and probably was the theme song for every other school dance party in the late nineties). It played over and over again that night, and throughout 1998, on the radios, on TV, in stores, to the point where I never wanted to listen to it again. Yet, all these years later, it is still a beautiful song and no one can deny that it's a nineties love song classic which probably will be remembered for decades to come. This was a song that was ironically constantly on my playlist as I wrote Chapter 66: The Truth in the Heart. Savage Garden ever-so-popular almost to the point of cliche song, "Truly, Madly, Deeply." Yes, cheesy nineties pop songs are healing to the soul and brings out the wide-eyed, teenage romantic in all of us.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Bye-bye revolutionhosting.net

Before anyone starts to panic, yes wishluv.revolutionhosting.net is down, forever, it seems. I have gratefully had free webhosting thanks to Bilal from revolutionhosting.net for 7 years, since 2003. Unfortunately, revolutionhosting.net has closed down. I was ready to continue working on the next chapter of New Trials, when I checked the site and it was gone without a trace, though it was up this morning. Since I have not received any sort of notice it was closing down, I am not even sure if I have all the website information saved, but I'm pretty sure I have all the chapters at least.

Even more unfortunately, the backup location, wishluv.geocities.com is also down because Geocities officially closed down earlier this year. At this point, I am too tired to think of how much work there is to be done trying to find a new server. I have mentioned numerous times I am very computer-illiterate, and it's amazing to me that I've been managing a website for a good ten years (Geocities since 2000-ish, wishluv.revolutionhosting.net since 2003-ish). Anyhow, many thanks to Bilal-san for introducing me to revolutionhosting.net and providing me with such wonderful (free) webhosting service for these past 7 years. I probably have not expressed that gratitude enough but I, also unfortunately, lost all my hotmail emails circa 2007 when hotmail decided to dump all my emails (yes, I hold a 3-year grudge).


Currently, (well, it's been less than an hour since I have found out about the *destruction* of revolutionhosting.net) I am searching for a new webhosting site. Please feel free to give me suggestions for the new home of "New Trials of Card Captor Sakura." The face of the internet seems to have changed greatly over the years, and I would like to find hosting that is reliable, without advertising, hopefully free (do they even have those anymore?) and can survive the next 10 years or so. And really, I do want everyone's input because I want to put reader-priority foremost, and I don't want to go through this kind of fiasco again, where both my websites are down without any notice.


Ah, the impermanence of websites. Somehow, it seems like New Trials has just disappeared without a trace off the internet. It's a bittersweet feeling; I feel like I am parting with a long-time friend, but at the same time, here heralds the mark of a new decade of an updated *Wish For A Star: The New Trials.* 

Many apologies for the inconvenience, but on a brighter note, you can still read "The New Trials of Card Captor Sakura" as always at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/197453/1/The_New_Trials_of_Card_Captor_Sakura_and_Friends

I will continue to communicate through this blog (I guess it was a good idea to make one, after all ^_^), and most of my recent artwork is up at http://wishluv.deviantart.com and I will continue to communicate through http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newtrialsring/messages

Update: Kirei Blossom from the Yahoo Group has informed me that a Geocities back-up can be found here: http://oocities.com/wishluv It has my old website and chapters till mid-Arc three posted up there. So, between that and ff.net, you can still read New Trials till Chapter 67 comes out. ^_^

Update 2: The amazing Selenityshiroi-sama from the Yahoo Group has kindly posted up a backup for most of the New Trials chapters till Arc 3 here: http://newtrials.dreamwidth.org/


RIP wishluv.revolutionhosting.net 2003-2010.