Kagemaki Kagezou, Sumire no sweet magic and cherry_drops' 008man

This week I have seen what my Japanese Twitter friends are doing with Perman.

The first one is about Kagemaki Kagezou. His name is a variation of "Kemumaki" and "Kanzo (Hattori)" from Ninja Hattori-kun. He is formerly known as KAGE64. He is a high school student who I have been friends on Twitter. His favourite characters on Perman are Copy Mitsuo (his face is same as Mistuo Suwa but he has a red nose and acts as a relief to Mitsuo Suwa to keep his identity as Perman) and his girlfriend Yuki-chan. He opened up his Perman-related website called "Perwatch Hoso Kyoku" and "Copy Yuki". He made a collaboration with Chima-san and Milkcocoa on the F-chaser website. Recently after seeing comparisons of his drawing styles, I didn't realise that Kagemaki Kagezou was in fact the man who was formerly known as KAGE64, not a new man as I thought. His drawing style has changed a lot.  

The second one is about a new friend that I've found who is "Sumire no sweet magic". The friend that I first found on a blog link made by cherry_drops and also on Twitter is a school student and also a fan of Perman. I'm not sure whether the friend I found is a he or a she, but I'm sure it's a he. His favourite characters are Mitsuo and Sumire where he says that both are perfect couples. I'm thinking of the same too.

The last one is about cherry_drops' 008man that I have blogged a few days ago. She has made the 008man story based on the "Zero Zero Perman" story in the Perman manga and reminds to read the "Zero Zero Perman" story first before reading her story which is part of her "two-dimensional novel"
 stories. "Two-dimensional novel" (as how I translated from Japanese) is a Japanese term which I think it roughly means fan fiction in English.

(Small revision made on January 5 2013)

@cherry_drops123's 008 man and her Perman drawings scrapbook

This week @cherry_drops123 has drawn a Perman parody of James Bond called "008man" and posted on Pixiv. She reminded that the story where Perman appeared this way is in a Perman manga story called "Zero Zero Perman". Meanwhile, @cherry_drops123 also prepared her drawings of Perman on paper on a scrapbook, as seen on her blog post on her blog. I think she likes them very much.

Arabic writing used by Malaysian TV stations for Aidiladha

Recently I've seen two TV stations using Arabic writing to promote their programme line-up for the Aidiladha festive period. A really rare opportunity to see local TV stations using Arabic writing for branding. The first one is from TV Alhijrah, which uses the slogan "Al-Adha Kembara Suci" for Aidiladha. There are some differences; in 2011, TV Alhijrah writes "Al-Adha" in Arabic writing which means Aidiladha in Arabic, but this year it has minor changes to the logo. "Al-Adha" is now written in Roman writing. Just a quick note, the theme song for TV Alhijrah's Aidiladha festive branding is Waiting for the Call by Irfan Makki. You can watch the video I linked below.

Moving on to TV9. TV9 reuses its Aidiladha branding but this one is strictly used only promos related to Aidiladha-themed programmes. It also uses Jawi writing, a variation of the Arabic writing. At first I thought it was written as "Akhlahr" but my grandfather pointed out that it was written as "Ikhlas". I was wrong because I read the Jawi letters the wrong way because I read alif as "a", not "i" and "ha" and "ro", not "s". Even the voiceovers have said that in the promos many times.  

(Updated October 25)

Softbank - a Japanese company

This morning I read an interesting news report on The Star Online. Japan has a rather big entrepreneur company similar to Richard Branson's Virgin. Softbank is a big Japanese company owned by Masayoshi Son. He is born to Korean parents in south-western Japan. His company has acquired small companies and owns a majority share on big companies. His business focus is on mobile Internet. It is currently the second-largest telecom company in Japan.

Taizo Son, Son's younger brother says that his brother "won't enter other sectors such as a coke or airlines" as Branson would do. The similarity between Son and Branson was claimed by Masashi Oda, equity chief investment officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Investment Trust, where he founds out that "they fight government regulation and expand businesses by lowering business prices". The proof - Softbank offers Internet services by lowering telecom charges in 2000 and sells smartphones by selling the iPhone in 2008. Softbank is the first telecom company in Japan to offer iPhone until KDDI added iPhone in 2011.

Masayoshi Son doesn't like nuclear energy since earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster hit Japan in 2011. He also owns Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, a baseball team also an avid Twitter user. He is also speedy in decision making, making him very different than a traditional Japanese executive, as claimed by a Japanese banker who has met with Son several times.

Besides mobile internet business, Softbank is also doing energy business. SB Energy Corp is currently building Japan's biggest solar power plant.

Government initiative related programmes on TV3

Two new programmes, both related to Malaysian government, are airing on TV3 right now.

"Doktor Muda", a local children's show, airs every Saturday and Sunday at 8:30 am. It is hosted by Nabil, a local actor of the Raja Lawak Astro fame, and produced by Bahagian Pendidikan Kesihatan of the Ministry of Health. It is about a Malaysian government's initiative where the Ministry of Health has established a co-curricular association (persatuan ko-kurikulium) called Doktor Muda, which is aimed towards primary school pupils. The purpose was to educate pupils to have a healthy life. The mascots for the show was designed by Animasia Studios, the animation studio behind Bola Kampung, judging from the design of the mascots.

Another show which is related to Malaysian government's initiative is DIY (Dengan Inovasi Yo!), which is airs every Friday at 6:30 pm. The show started earlier in late September 2012. It is produced by Garang Pictures. The show is part of an initiative which is 2012 as the year of science and innovation by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.The show targets secondary school students, despite being part of Bananana block which is a kids block. The show takes a different approach where there is a different host for a different state. Each host represent their place of birth, for example, in the first episode aired on 21 September 2012, Soo Wincci is in Ipoh, Perak where she was born. In the next episode onwards, the show goes to a different state with a different host and so on. In each episode's hosts' place of births too, the show focuses on four teams innovating products from a common object that the hosts' place of births' states belong to. Among the four teams, one team with the best innovative product will be selected for the national finals.

I have my very own laptop for the first time

Today my father gave me a brand new HP Mini laptop. The laptop is a present to me from my parents because of my success in PMR. It's not as big as a normal laptop but I love it.

It's October already!

Five days has passed since the start of October. This month and next month is also the examination season for most secondary school students. What I mean is the PMR, SPM and STPM exams just before the year-end school holidays.

For two weeks starting next Tuesday my second brother will have his PMR examinations (the Penilaian Menengah Rendah, the examinations in the lower secondary school before going to upper secondary school). While for me, I'll have my four-week year-end exam starting on the same day as my second brother's. Before that, as usual, revisions for my year-end exam. The interesting part for my year-end exam will be the Sejarah Kertas 3 (History subject) where candidates have to refer to the Sejarah textbook while making a guided-written outline for a topic in the Sejarah subject. The Kertas 3 is introduced for SPM 2013 because the Ministry of Education believes that many SPM candidate have failed in the subject. The ministry wants all SPM candidates to pass in Bahasa Malaysia and Sejarah in 2013. My school has introduced the Sejarah Kertas 3 paper for this year-end exam to test us, the candidates for SPM 2013 for next year's subject paper test.

This week I've read the news about Malaysia-Egypt relations and the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and his wife on an official visit to Japan. Speaking about foreign relations, my interest in foreign relations of Malaysia had started when I read an article in The Star Online about Malaysia-China bilateral relations in August 2012. I became really keen on this matter because I really like to know about how Malaysia interacts with other countries while I was keen on knowing other countries on the internet even though I've never going out of Malaysia before. Since then, I've been making edits on a Wikipedia article named "Foreign relations of Malaysia". What I did is, whenever I read a recent article about relations between Malaysia and a foreign country in a newspaper, I would make edits in the article.