Aikatsu Stars 64 and Idoltime Pripara 14 Review

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 64

It’s totally an episode about Rei and Mahiru.

Rei being outshined by Elza and just being demotivated from showcasing herself well.

Mahiru is like “Action speaks louder than words”, and proceed for her hard training, and show her best and her SPR wings to inspire Rei.

I love how they presented the final shot of Mahiru shining with the wings.

Elza has really not done her job as a headmistress in Venus Ark. When your idols get demotivated (Rei and previously Alice), she just throws an insult “Disappointed” and did nothing else to help them. In the end, they all had to rely on outsiders to get themselves back up.

With this episode, I am also quite surprised at how they are willing to not spoil stuff in previous episodes previews. There are already quite a few episodes that goes the unpredictable route even with the previews shown. I applaud the anime makers for their effort in this.

Finally, I am happy to see Yozora back being cute towards Mahiru again. She is so much fun.

Idoltime Pripara 14

I did not do any screenshots for Pripara because I am just lazy.

This episode has Gaarumageddon back to the party.

Aroma is basically driving the show forward for the whole episode and is actually becoming the main factor of dragging Michiru into Pripara.

They are definitely adding a lot of fun to the main cast, as compared to Yui and Lala only.

Aikatsu Stars 63 and Idoltime Pripara 13 Review

July 1, 2017July 1, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 63

The Sentai 4 (S4) parody is great and it really is a fun episode.

However, I really feel like the theme of the episode went all wrong.

The activity was supposed to be for Lily to gain strength to endure through the summer instead of going for summer hibernation mode.

But in face of all the crisis, Lily pretty much did nothing and gained help from all the S4 members magically one by one.

She does gain a new power: “Friendship Summoning”, by summoning friends (S4) out of thin air to help her when required.

Idoltime Pripara 13

I am going to just start this with WHY the HECK is Parajuku Pripara getting destroyed by a FUCKING BOMB?

This really undermines the effort of the original cast saving Pripara multiple times from systems disasters/heaven disasters in the original 140 episodes. I just feel so sad for them.

This really gives out enough shock value and only serves a plot point to bring Gaarumageddon back to the forefront of Idoltime Pripara.

Welcome back Gaarumageddon anyways.

Aikatsu Stars 62 and Idoltime Pripara 12 review

June 23, 2017June 23, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 62

This is the episode where Rola goes through some ridiculous trials to get to be the muse for Spice Chord.

Now almost all the main characters get their own brand except poor Ako.

As cool as Rola is, she is always willing to immerse in and enjoy her Taiyaki role which always make me smile.

Idoltime Pripara 12

This episode just reminds me how good is Pripara when Yui starts abusing her MC and friendship power.

I always liked how friendship saves the day and saves the world kind of theme in Pripara.

This also brings an end to first arc as the first grand prix ends, and appearance of Falala and Super Idol Time, which is starting the next arc on probably the actual Idol Time system?

Super Idol Time is definitely a clone of Kami Idol Challenge made better with their better 3D CG.

Yui really has grown on me since the first episode.

Since this is the end of first arc, I am writing a general impression of the first 12 episodes.

I didn’t really like Idoltime from the start as Yui is being too delusional and Lala lost her twintails, and forced to be pretty much useless.

Idoltime is also reusing the plot thread of headmistress not allowing them to Pripara and which is kinda boring by now.

Fortunately, this is already resolved by the end of this episode.

Idoltime is also still relying cameos from Solami Smile and Dressing Pafe to prop up this, and I hope they will start to tone this down for the new characters to support the show on their own.

I am still not a fan of Nino by now, but I guess I will grow on her like how I grow on Yui (Like pretty much all idol anime.

Episode 12 really excites me and revitalize my hopes for this.

Hope Idoltime will continue strongly.

Aikatsu Stars 61 and Idoltime Pripara 11 review

June 15, 2017June 15, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 61

Well, we are now 10+ episodes into Aikatsu Stars S2, it’s safe to say for me that it is doing great right now. The latest episode is just fun.

That Ako mermaid is just sexy. It is an Ako centric episode but it is nice to see all the main 4 characters get to have their part too.

Yume had a nice new variation of Twintails when going out with Ako. Mahiru ended Koharu and Asahi pairing with a karate chop.

Mahiru and Rola had a good time sneaking around and just having fun.

And well nothing much progressed between Ako and Subaru once again, as she keeps on escaping.

Finally the second wave of songs start appearing and we have Happy Punch by Yume and Ako. First performance by Ako in S2 btw.

Honestly this type of songs fits much more than the DCD version of Yume and Elza.

There is also another unnamed duet special appeal with Strawberries.

Ako also starts wearing FuwafuwaDream.

All those Ako faces in this episode are really precious.

Idoltime Pripara 11

The Idoltime Grandprix is supposed to start but Yui and Nino got stuck playing softball.

It’s difficult to believe that the softball match can actually span two episodes.

We have another full cameo of Dressing Pafe with Shion helping Nino in the softball match cryptically and left again.

It’s always nice to see Dressing Pafe being there again.

Finally we also do get to see Solami Smile performing again together with the much expected full trio Making Drama Hello Aozora Smile Sparkling.

Interesting findings on ssh fail2ban

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

As this is my private VPS, it is super annoying to see people attempting to try to ssh into my server.

I am current using fail2ban to filter out IPs that are attempting to ssh into my server multiple times and have them permabanned.

It’s been one month since it is implemented and this is the current statistics.

It is interesting to see China being the main source of IP being banned.

Maybe they are being too aggressive and keeps on triggering my ban rules?

Still there are plenty of other countries being banned too.

Banned IP country status
Total IP banned: 126
1 GeoIP Country Edition: A1, Anonymous Proxy
2 GeoIP Country Edition: CA, Canada
1 GeoIP Country Edition: CH, Switzerland
57 GeoIP Country Edition: CN, China
1 GeoIP Country Edition: CO, Colombia
1 GeoIP Country Edition: CZ, Czech Republic
4 GeoIP Country Edition: DE, Germany
1 GeoIP Country Edition: DO, Dominican Republic
4 GeoIP Country Edition: GB, United Kingdom
1 GeoIP Country Edition: HK, Hong Kong
1 GeoIP Country Edition: ID, Indonesia
4 GeoIP Country Edition: IN, India
5 GeoIP Country Edition: IP Address not found
2 GeoIP Country Edition: IT, Italy
1 GeoIP Country Edition: JP, Japan
5 GeoIP Country Edition: KR, Korea, Republic of
1 GeoIP Country Edition: NI, Nicaragua
5 GeoIP Country Edition: NL, Netherlands
1 GeoIP Country Edition: PE, Peru
1 GeoIP Country Edition: PK, Pakistan
1 GeoIP Country Edition: RO, Romania
3 GeoIP Country Edition: RU, Russian Federation
1 GeoIP Country Edition: SE, Sweden
3 GeoIP Country Edition: TH, Thailand
1 GeoIP Country Edition: TR, Turkey
2 GeoIP Country Edition: TW, Taiwan
2 GeoIP Country Edition: UA, Ukraine
11 GeoIP Country Edition: US, United States
2 GeoIP Country Edition: VN, Vietnam
1 GeoIP Country Edition: ZA, South Africa

Sample bash script source code to get the results above

#!/bin/bash

#Gets the list of IP being banned for sshd in fail2ban
IP_LIST=$(fail2ban-client status sshd | grep Banned | cut -d":" -f2 | tr " " "\n" | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' )

#Count the list of IP
echo "Total IP banned: " $(echo "$IP_LIST" | wc -l)

#Uses geoiplookup to locate the country of the IPs and count them
( for IP in $IP_LIST ; do geoiplookup $IP ; done ) | sort | uniq -c

Aikatsu Stars 60 and Idoltime Pripara 10 review

June 9, 2017June 9, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 60

It’s an episode we are supposed to know more about Elza but nothing else much is revealed.

We know that she is still ruthless but one small detail would be she secretly hate veggies and just love her steaks.

We also get a one-time character Alice which looks cute enough to be a cute type, but it is likely we would not ever see her again in the future.

I do hope she will appear again though.

As usual, Yume still gets development when the episode is other character centric. I guess it’s a perk of being the MC.

Yume’s ability to make others shine makes Elza believe she will get her wings soon in the future.

Yume is still so damn Kawaii in each of the shots she is appearing.

[Show slideshow]

Idoltime Pripara 10

A bit too lazy to screenshot for Pripara this episode. Finally Nino debuted.

Nino’s Pripara form is pretty normal. Cameo for Dressing Pafe is welcome.

Apparently they are going have the Grand Prix with Yui and Nino only. It’s kinda ridiculous though.

Aikatsu Stars 59 and Idoltime Pripara 9 review

June 1, 2017June 1, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 59

I am so happy watching this episode. Finally this is THE Yume episode. An episode leading discovery to Yume’s motto for her brand Berry Parfait “Make everyone shine”.

Yume Stardom solo is the best performance in Aikatsu Stars S2 for now imo. Premium Star Happiness for you is also great.

Yume still can’t awaken her wings due to “Plot”.

Elza is telling her to up her designer skills for a better PR dress so we will probably get another PR for Yume this season.

I am just making loads of Yume screenshots because I like Yume that much. Yume is so CUTE!!!!

[Show slideshow]

Idoltime Pripara 9

Some development for the side characters but nothing happened on this filler episode.

Exactly same Brand New Happiness as last episode.

Looks like Nino is going to debut next episode and it looks like Shion is in the next episode preview?

Aikatsu Stars 58 and Idoltime Pripara 8 review

May 27, 2017May 27, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

Aikatsu Stars 58

Actually I am just screenshotting for Yume.

Elza is still showing off her superiority to Yume. Yume still has a long way to go if she wants to beat Elza for once.

She is not only just talented, hardworking and also calculating.

I guess that’s the part she is above Ichigo, since Ichigo is almost always spontaneous, and Mizuki is quite similar in a way to Elza.

Guess we’ll see the debut of Berry Parfait next episode. Looking forward to that.

[Show slideshow]

Idoltime Pripara 8

An episode trying to recruit Nino into Pripara, but it just failed.

And the next episode seems to be another filler.

Still hoping to see the other main characters joining Pripara soon. Yui and Lala together every episode are getting a bit stale.

New song Brand New Happiness is great though. The song is just so Pripara and upbeat. Also great making drama.

[Show slideshow]

警視総監 PR Aoi GET!

May 24, 2017May 24, 2017 waijie666 Leave a comment

I have been quite lucky in the recent two months. I got the medley PR gacha for consecutive 2 months (Well it’s considered lucky comparing to previous months which I have 0 PRs)

警視総監 PR Aoi is so damn cool.