chidade.net

So!

Waaaay back in 2006, while I was still living in Yokohama, I convinced my then housemate that she needed to call in sick one Sunday so that we could go to Harajuku and the Tokyo Anime Fair. Which we did.

We got up pretty late though and only managed to get to Harajuku at about 1pm. Did our thing (I think L may have bought some GothLoli stuff) and then we tried to navigate our way from Harajuku on the west side of the Yamanote Circle to Tokyo Big Sight in Odaiba. Which is an impressive piece of architecture but bloody annoying to get to.

I think that the commute took us about an hour, but I thought we’d be okay since we left Harajuku at 3.30pm and closing time at TAF was 6pm.

Or so I thought.

We arrived at Tokyo Big Sight where there were surprisingly few people around…suspicious. Walking to the entrance took another 15 odd minutes from the station. We eventually arrived at the gates to the fair and said “Two, please”

“Ahh! Ehhh….no”

“Huh?”

“etou…No more”

“Ehhhhhhh?! It’s sold out? Closed? But it’s supposed to close at 6! It’s only 4.30pm!”

But we weren’t allowed in. I was hella annoyed. I had my Urahara hat on and a wallet full of yen and I wanted to get inside to spend it, dammit! L was distressed too. She told the guy at the gates - and I’ll never forget how she said it - “But we’re from England!”

Wrong, but it seemed to work! The guy at the gate shoo-ed us inside. Then L said in an outraged voice: “He smacked my ass as we went past!”

Bwaaaahahahaha! I told her that she took one for the team, now let’s get shopping!

The place was empty. We were wandering up and down empty aisles - which in a way, was kinda cool, since we didn’t have to fight against crowds of people. Plus we had gotten in for free!

But nothing was happening, the screens were all being turned off, the displays were being dismantled. Only one stall still had merchandise for sale but they were in the process of packing up so I only managed to snatch a few Fullmetal Alchemist items before they too closed.

Why the hell is it closing so soon? Eventually we were told that because it was the last day of the fair, they closed earlier than usual to get a start on dismantling everything.

Admittedly they had a lot to dismantle. I managed to get some nice shots of a huge-ass Ichigo and life-sized Ed, Al and Naruto statues.

A booth babe handed us the last of the showbags and there wasn’t much left to do but leave. I think we were inside the fair for about 15 minutes. Maybe 20. I was kinda pissed about it. We got up too late and spent too long in Harajuku. But then again, it was my fault for not clarifying the closing time.

L and I promised each other that we’d fly back to Tokyo to attend next year’s Tokyo Anime Fair. Heh, that never happened, did it L?

Anyway, that was a fucking long prelude.

One of the showbags we managed to get our hands on had this printed on the side:

Le Chevalier d’Eon

I remember thinking: I’ve never heard of this anime before, but simply based on this one image - I wanna see it!

I still have that showbag too.

Anyway, on Monday I finished the second of my exams. Decided that I’d go home, bloody clean the place and make my housemate some dinner since I’ve been ignoring both her and the house while I’ve been studying. Finally, at around 9pm, I collapsed in front of the pay TV that I hadn’t really used even though I’ve been living here for nearly 3 months.

Hooray for the Cartoon Network and Madman Entertainment, that’s all I can say!

Adult Swim had Le Chevalier d’Eon on that night! Over a year since I’d heard of it an now I could watch it! And luckily it was also the premiere! I could start watching the series at episode one!

Admittedly, episode one in English….but even though I’m a subs-over-dubs anime fan, I could tolerate this dub. Dubs often work well if you know that there’s a particular accent needed, like French. Having Japanese actors speak Japanese in French accent would probably be amusing but it’s not what I’d want to listen to.

Not many characters had French accents in this dub but thankfully they didn’t sound painfully American. They did have some painful timing problems, as is often the case with English dubs, but I was just so keen to see this series that I was going to put up with it this time.

My rant about why Foxtel Digital doesn’t offer multiple audio stream will have to wait for another day!

So! A review of Le Chevalier d’Eon. Or at least, a Chidade-style review. Which basically means, focus on one obscure thing and don’t give any hints about the rest (see my review of Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest for another example)…

…anyway.

The series did start pretty well. I like historical novels and movies so I liked the genre already. It was definitely an adult anime with no dodgy censoring for the kiddies whose parents can’t cope with animated blood. It was going really well for the first 20 minutes. I had it pinned as an action (swordfighting/fencing), crime and espionage, political and historical drama about the times of Louis XV - maybe even something I could recommend to my Dad, coz I’m sure he could enjoy an anime or two if I could just convince him to sit down and watch it!

Then, in the last five minutes of the show, Le Chevalier d’Eon proved that on top of being an action, crime and espionage, political and historical drama - it was above all else, a Japanese animation.

…(spoilers ahead)….

A zombie appeared out of nowhere and the main character passed out and turned into a woman.

Go figure!

Honestly! It’s such an anime thing to do! It can’t be a proper anime or manga unless there’s some kind of monster, or robot, or something weird happening with people’s genitals!

Haha, I love it :D

It’s like that Rodriguez movie - From Dusk Til Dawn. For the first three quarters of the movie, it’s a Tarantino-esque, violent crime movie. Then, suddenly, there’s a bunch of vampires everywhere! Still an awesome movie though, heh.

I’m still liking Le Chevalier d’Eon, despite the obvious genre change. I probably won’t be recommending it to my Dad, though.

Also, I did a bit of research. The anime was originally a manga (common enough) but the manga was actually based on a novel. And the character of d’Eon was actually based on a real historical figure - Chevalier d’Eon who claimed to be born a woman and actually spent the second half of his life living as one!

Truth is stranger than fiction, people. Despite how hard manga and anime try, hehe. I learnt my lesson.

Still, I highly doubt than Hollywood would ever try anything like this. Maybe Rodriguez and Tarantino would - it seems up their alley. But they’ve long said how they appreciate anime and Japanese filmmaking.

This is why I love anime. It’s gives something new and different.

Le Chevalier d’Eon: 7/10

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Kudos to Circus Girl. I’m going to steal your blogging style for a moment ;)

Thursday:
Wake up late, sticky, hate tsuyu, oh my gods I need to change hostels, pack bags, pack more bags, what the hell kind of packing is that? Chidade, you’re a Rover, for shame! Empty everything, pack again, actually learn room mates’ names, then leave, heh, backpack, laptop bag, two bags worth of shopping, HEEAAAAVVVEEEEEEEE! holy crap my fingers are dead, should I get a taxi? urk, taxi expensive, how do I get them to go to Gojo? “Gojo House onegaishimasu“, “Wakkanai“, stuff it, I’ll walk, half way there, totally regretting that, fingers now blue, brainwave! bag in bag and now one less bag! still weighs the same /swt, are we there yet? who are you talking to? you! no, you! ok, definitely need food, but baaaaaaaaaggggsss! hey it’s Gojo! omg I made it, stumble in, collapse, “hey”, “hey”, “how are you?”, *gasp* “‘k. I’d like to check in, please!”, “check in isn’t until 3pm”, $%&##!@#^ need shower! “Ok, but I’m leaving my bags here until then”, huunnnngggrrryyyyyy, crap! I left my breakfast in the fridge at K’s House! waaaaaaah, ok, walking back now /sob, so much easier without bags, must be losing weight with all this walking, back at K’s, salmon sushi onigiri breakfast, eat on the steps, numnumnum, so what am I going to do until 3pm? At least the late check-in forces me to do something, CRAP! camera is in bags at Gojo, feck it, I’m NOT walking back there again, what can I do today that doesn’t require camera? Head to Kyoto station to get inspiration, watch fashion show, should I write about this for 3yen? Get bus map, needs camera, needs a camera, needs camera, maybe I’ll just go shopping? Really want somewhere with an air conditioner, OOOOH! International Manga Museum! Sold, buy bus ticket, …..no bus route nearby, MORE WALKING?! This place better have an awesome air conditioner >.< need ramune icypole to survive the trip. gari gari kun is teh awesome, is this it? is this it? are we there yet? It looks like a school, it IS a school! “Konnichiwa!”, that’s like the first time I’ve heard that on this holiday, 500 yen, Great Wall Of Manga, this collection must be James’ wet dream, there’s not actually that much here, any English manga? Just give me some English manga, a seat and a vending machine in air conditioned goodness, wait, a figure exhibition? 500 yen, hahaha Fist of the North Star, wow! Who’s she? KAWAII! bingbingbing 2.40pm blog time. Feet achy. Nearly time to check in but want to revive feet first. English manga!! Read last volume of Battle Royale, so that’s how it ended, time to go back, bus back the long way round, “ok now you can check in”, make bed, collapse, wake up 11pm, combini dinner, collapse again.

Friday:
Wake up, unpack everything AGAIN! repack properly, now only have three bags, taxi to Kyoto Station because I’m not going to be walking again and in the rain, book shinkansen, bakery breakfast, get on Hikari, I think I’ve been in this seat before, Kyo-kun gets a workout, pillows playlist, so many gaijin, too much rain to see Mt Fuji, pass through Shin-Yokohama, TADAIMA!! Arrive at Tokyo, TADAIMA!!! Change train, change train, wow, K’s House Tokyo is really close to the station, check in, SHOWER, I feel human again, laundry, run back to train station and go to AKIHABARA!! TADAAAAIIIMMMAAAA!!!!! Nearly everything is closed though /sob Hang on, what happened to Aso Bit City?! Stress! Oh wait, there it is. Any Ragnarok? Ragnarok, Ragnarok, Ragna- damn, only volume 1 and 3…c’mon Akiba, don’t let me down! None of the shops have Volume 2 /sob but oooh, I found Gorgeous Mysterious Katana-Wielding Woman from the Manga Museum….and for cheaper too! Glad I didn’t buy her in Kyoto *yoink* shops closed, must go collect laundry, hooray for wireless internet in K’s House! Make plans with M & T for tomorrow, watch Naruto and BLEACH on YouTube, eek! 2am! Collapse.

Saturday in Kamakura and with old friends: much fun an alcohol - next.
Sunday in Harajuku: tale of heartbreak and love - after that.
Monday in Akiba and Nakano: victory and defeat - after that again.

Tomorrow I have a date with the Emperor. Hopefully I’ll actually post about everything eventually.

1am, time to collapse.

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Some background:

Yakitate!! Japan is a Japanese manga and anime which is basically all about baking bread. The title means “Freshly Baked!! Japan” which is also a pun, because “pan” is the Japanese word for bread. Sounds like an odd subject for a series but it is honestly one of my favourites.

It’s about a boy named Kazuma Azuma who wants to create a bread that is uniquely Japanese, much like there is German bread (doitsu-pan), French Bread (furansu-pan) and Italian bread (itaria-pan) - hence the name Ja-pan.

The series is above all funny but it may be better appreciated by those who have watched plenty of anime before, and know the conventions and clichés. A lot of the jokes are parodies of other anime/manga or their genres.

Still, it could be interesting for non-otaku too. The manga actually had recipes of the breads featured in the series, as well as general baking tips. The manga-ka Takashi Hashiguchi hired a bread artisan consultant while writing the series. That consultant’s name is Kouichi Uchimura. He created a lot of the bread that appeared in the series and is apparently really trying to create a uniquely Japanese bread (I personally thought that they had plenty, but anyway). Uchimura has a bakery here in Kyoto called Pan no Mimi (which translates into ‘bread ends’, or ‘bread crusts’) and that’s where I went today!

To get to Pan no Mimi, you need to get on the JR San-In or Sagano Line (Platforms 32 and 33 at JR Kyoto Station at time of writing) and get off two stations later at Nijo Station. Yes, that’s Nijo, like Nijo-jo, or Nijo Castle. The castle is a block away from the station. When you get out of the station (take the east exit, there should be signs pointing to Nijo Castle) and you get to the main road, take a left and walk for a while. You’ll pass two major intersections and about four traffic lights in total. Pan no Mimi will be on this street you’re walking down, on your left. There are only signs in Japanese.

The first thing I thought when I found the place was “Yay! I found it!” because it really was a hike from Nijo Station and I thought I may have missed it. The second thing I thought was “….it’s so tiny”. And it really is. There is barely room for two customers to move around. There is a small display with some Yakitate!! Japan manga and posters explaining how Uchimura was involved, plus a few manga scans and what seems to be a thank you card from the Yakitate!! team to Uchimura.

But that was all that showed that this was anything more than a tiny, local bakery servicing the residents in the less-touristy part of Kyoto. In keeping with its name, Pan no Mimi was in fact selling bags of bread ends and bread crusts on one table….for what I’m not sure. It just looked like duck and koi food to me.

In every Japanese bakery you walk into, you’ll find a pile of trays and tongs at the door so you can serve yourself. Go around the display and place what you want to buy on your tray, then take everything to the counter where it will be bagged by the assistant and totalled.

I decided to go for two very Yakitate!! breads: melon bread (meron-pan) and a French baguette (furansu-pan). Coupled with a bottle of lemon ice tea, the whole thing was less than $6.

If I remember correctly, in the anime, the melon bread that Kazuma made was rather ugly and sickly looking, but then it tasted fantastic. It was the same with Pan no Mimi’s melon bread. It didn’t look anything like the carefully sculptured and identical looking breads that you get from the local combini - but, oh man, when you tasted it……yumyumyum. There was only a hint of melon flavour - it was mainly just a sugar hit, complete with slightly caramelised bits on the edges.

The baguette was slightly sticky and chewy on the inside while being very crusty on the outside - again, just like they said it was in Yakitate!! - and it was also damn tasty. In fact, it was so good that I had eaten most of it before I remembered to take a photo, heh.

I didn’t have extreme and comic reactions to the breads’ taste like the characters in the series, but I did like it enough to decide to go back tomorrow - despite the hike to get there.

Pan no Mimi is quite unique among Japanese bakeries. There’s great bakeries here, no doubt. The Andersen under Kyoto Station makes an excellent Polish-style rye, even if they call it “brot” (ie: German bread). But they still seem very…Japanese and like Yakitate!! says, the Japanese aren’t known for bread. Uchimura must’ve trained in Europe or somewhere, because his bread is the most continental of the breads I’ve tasted in Japan, while still being unique and still Japanese. He sells those 3cm-thick-6-slice-loafs too. Those loaves are generally the worst kind of bread you can find anywhere. I think Uchimura’s may be good though. They’re slightly burnt around the edges, I noticed, heh. I wonder if they’re made with wasabi like in the anime?

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Note to self:

Paying attention in lectures is extremely difficult with wireless internet access and a guy in front of you watching Naruto on YouTube.

Sigh.

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I’ve been accepted into university. I’ll be attending Swinburne University of Technology’s Hawthorn campus for another three years of I.T. training. I’m relieved in a way, because I’ve technically been on holiday for the last two years now and my brain has been dribbling out my ears. I need to have a regular schedule again. 4 hours of evening classes 5 days a week in an eikaiwa didn’t count. They were complete no-brainers.

So, I have two weeks left before orientation. Surrounded by 17 and 18 year olds who are going to go batshit insane over the free alcohol. Vodka lost it’s novelty for me a while ago. I wonder how I’ll cope surrounded by kids?

Anyway, I digress. What I was going to say is that I have 2 weeks left to get myself organised for school and my tight budget that begins February 19th. So, while this list is probably quite boring for you, dear readers, deal with it. What follows are the system requirements to be able to install the upgrade to Chidade: version 3.1.

• Purchase replacement Razr V3x and mod it so that it has all necessary ringtones, images and the Final Fantasy victory fanfare as the SMS alert.
• Install the calendar syncronisation program that’ll keep my Google Calendar and keitai in sync, via Outlook.
  Note: this will require installing Office 2003 at last.
• Deauthorise the iTunes on Akiba and convert AAC files to MP3 then backup on PC.
• Backup Akiba and reformat, see if you can get an English OS instead. Learn how to actually operate the tablet features since that’s why you bought the bloody thing.
• Try and get Joomla installed and running for the Aug. website eventually so they don’t hassle you for free web design work during the semester, the tightwads.
• See if you can get a good chunk of the planning done and some psuedo-coding for the fundraising website.
• See if any of the textbooks you spent thousands of dollars on during the first degree can be recycled for this second one.
• Upgrade the blog to Wordpress 2.1 Ella, which looks very spiffy.
• Get Chidade to job level 50 and bloody job change into a Blacksmith already!

Two weeks should be enough to get all of the above done, except for the fact that this weekends seems to want to rip me apart with social engagements. Good grief. I don’t think I’ve ever been so over-booked.

• St. Kilda Festival
• The inaugural Discworld convention and gala dinner Nullus Anxietas - the first outside the UK. Yay! I finally get to do what everyone else already seems to have done - meet Terry Pratchett!
• Snark’s 25th birthday and party
• Madman’s free open-air cinema again on Saturday night. This time, it’s the awesome Read or Die
• R’s Shindig and catching up with Mi
• An old high school friend’s birthday party
• K’s Singstar party

The Gala Dinner, K’s party and the school friend’s birthday party have already become victims. Most of this weekend is going to be taken up by Nullus Anxietas, I guess. Hopefully St. Kilda Fest and Madman get a look in. Ross Irwin and the Soul Special are playing at the festival.

Gah! Busy!

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It’s Matt’s 25th today. For his present, Snark and I got creative and painted a chibi Kakashi from Naruto onto a pair of Levi jeans we bought. Got the idea when I saw Vic Mignogna’s jeans at the Madman birthday party.

More photos here.

Kudos to Snark for doing all of the actual artwork, nee-san for helping to cut stencils, Na for finding out what size jeans Matt wears in an amusing way and to Mi, Y and K for contributing funds.

I’m so making myself a pair of Spike Spiegel jeans.

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Before I went to Japan, I had a spectacular DVD collection. Actually, it wasn’t that spectacular, compared with some of the collections I saw in the “Post A Picture of your DVD Collection” thread on the Madboards. But it was probably around 100 discs, 80% of which was anime. 95% of the anime discs were from Madman Entertainment. I easily spent a few thousand dollars on Madman DVDs between 2002 and 2005. I guess it was the closest thing I ever had to ‘brand loyalty’.

And I did like Madman. They often had extras in their boxsets, they tried to do things differently from the American anime distributors occasionally, I never had any errors on the discs that I bought (although I’d heard lots of stories about quality control breakdowns) and most importantly, they had their own forums, the Madboards - where staff themselves posted, socialised, answered queries and took recommendations. I don’t think I know of any other company that were so in touch with their customers.

Sadly, I sold just about all my DVDs before I went to Japan to raise funds. I figured I wouldn’t buy any more DVDs until the next generation format *cough*Blu-Ray*cough* ones were released.

There was one other factor that affected my decision to sell too - the OFLC’s decision to change the way that movies, books, music and games are classified. Apparently too many kids have been getting their hands on stuff not suitable for them, so instead of increasing fines for shops who sell them illegally to minors and telling parents to be responsible for what their kids watch, they decided to plaster big ugly markings all over DVDs and the like. This pisses off child-free adults like myself no end.

Fucking parents. Why does everyone else but you have to be responsible for what happens to your brats? I will never have children.

Madman (and the fans) were very unhappy about it from the beginning. They have a team of designers who love the shows they’re designing covers for and spend great amounts of time and energy to complete these beautiful DVD covers and boxsets - then the OFLC puts these lurid colour labels on them to make sure you know what the rating is, while completely ruining the look. I don’t care what the rating is. Anyone who does care about what the rating is would look to find it. And they would have found it easily with the old markings. These new markings are pointless, ugly and I suspect only done so that the OFLC looked like they were actually doing something with taxpayer’s money.

Anyway.

After the OFLC went ahead with these markings, Madman pledged all sorts of things. Reversible covers on DVDs! Bellybands on boxsets! You can hide these markings and enjoy the untainted artwork!

Then a couple of items turned up that weren’t free from the ratings. Boxsets had the ratings printed on them. Some DVDs had no reversible covers, or they only had artwork that kinda looked like the cover, but not really. Then came the Complete Collections - series that already been rated by the old system but were appearing now with the new markings on them. In one case, the boxset artwork was changed completely in the Complete Collection version, apparently to accommodate the new markings. Neon Genesis Evangelion, for crying out loud - perhaps the must-have series for every anime collector, was released in a super-dooper-premium-silver-shiny-collection….and then had the markings printed on them.

I fumed, I ranted, I raved. There was Madman saying how they feel our pain, they were going to make sure that we didn’t have our collections ruined by the new markings, then they went back on their word. On some occasions they pointed out that there were words like “most” and “generally” and “often” in their statements, if you went back and read and re-read the small print. On other occasions they said nothing at all about their broken promises.

The bellybands debarcle was one that probably could’ve have been avoided if someone sat down and thought for a bit. Eventually they came up with the bellybands that didn’t circle all the way round, but rather folded round the edge and were sticky-taped into place where necessary. This kept customers and shop owners happy. But in the meantime, there were several months worth of boxsets released with the new markings printed on them. And they’ll raise their ugly heads again later when they’re re-released as complete collections, since Madman seem to do their printing all in one go.

It made me so mad. The new markings weren’t Madman’s fault, of course. I had a lot of rage reserved for those conservative, over-bearing cretins in the OFLC. But removable stickers would’ve solved the problem simply and easily. Madman complained about the high cost of stickers, but I wonder if a) that was true, given that they are also a printing company, and b) if it wasn’t worth it anyway, given how many people stated that they would no longer buy Australian DVDs with these markings and would import instead. There would be a lot of lost potential sales because of those markings. For one, it made me determined not to buy any more anime until the Blu-Ray format came out. And then I would consider importing it from the U.S. given that they would be released there earlier anyway.

Madman seemed more concerned with saving the profit margin than what the fans wanted, an opinion that was compounded when it was announced that Madman had been bought out by Funimation. Perhaps it was a company started by fans, run by fans, for the fans. But now it’s dictated by shareholders. And they don’t care if you don’t like ugly ratings. Telling them that you won’t buy a DVD doesn’t hurt them as much as telling them that a sticker will cost an extra 25 cents per disc.

I also hate the stock exchange. But that’s another rant.

Recently Madman introduced fatpack packaging for Complete Collections. Instead of having a huge box that held individual cases, there would be one case, about the thickness of two individual cases, that would hold all the series’ discs inside. This concept didn’t appeal to me at first but after I thought about it, I liked the idea.

Firstly, these fatpacks would only be released after the big boxsets had sold out and gone out of print. Secondly, they have guaranteed reversible covers to get rid of OFLC markings. Thirdly, they’ll be cheaper than the boxset version of the Complete Collection. Plus I know, from a vendor point of view, that these fatpacks would be a relief for shops like JBHiFi that are already struggling with shelf space for the huge and growing anime catalogue. Up to ten discs in the space of two? Definitely a shelf saver.

I also thought back to when I had all those boxsets lined up on my shelf. I remember wishing that I had more single DVD cases in my collection to break up the line of boxes, but I didn’t have that many single anime movies, and all the series had boxsets. The fatpacks would break up the line of boxsets nicely.

Because all of the fatpacks were guaranteed to have reversible covers, this meant that all of those boxset collections that had the markings printed on them would one day be available as a reversible fatpack. I just have to wait the 3-5 odd years for them to kick in, heh. But I wasn’t meant to be buying any anime DVDs anyway, was I?

Well…

I’ve bought a few since I came home. Cowboy Bebop Remix, because it’s Cowboy Bebop and I can’t live without my own copy. Then I bought FLCL because along with Bebop, it’s one of my must-owns (hey, it was how I learnt of the pillows, it’s a legit claim!). Then there’s the Fullmetal Alchemist tin #3, because my “No More DVDs” rule doesn’t apply to limited editions, and I already owned Tins #1 and #2…

…then this week I bought Volume 1 + Boxset of Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu! because I still had the original Full Metal Panic boxset and this was the sequel so I may as well have continuity going…

….I’m going to end up spending 50% of my income on DVDs again, aren’t I?

Bloody hell. Like a boyfriend I always end up forgiving no matter how much he’s hurt me, I seem to go back to Madman. Admittedly, by fixing the bellyband problem and guaranteeing reversibles on fatpacks, Madman’s done the equivalent of a bunch of roses and great make-up sex. Besides, this November 4th is the 10th anniversary of Madman releasing Bubblegum Crisis 2040 - their first ever title. And to celebrate they’re selling their entire catalogue of DVDs for $10 per disc. Now’s a time to celebrate and be happy instead of bitching and forum flaming.

Happy Birthday, Madman. There’s been ups and downs but I love you dearly, really. The party tonight was awesome and the cake was delicious. I hope you’re around for another ten years, and ten again after that.

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Okay, allow me to get really geeky and emo here.

The hardest part about being an anime fan, or otaku, is not how others may ridicule you for watching “kids cartoons”. It’s not how it breaks your budget and then your wallet repeatedly. It’s not the frustration you can feel at being crap at Japanese.

It’s not even, after spending a year in Japan in general and Akihabara in particular, realising that you’re back in Australia and far away from that otaku haven.

No, the hardest thing is the fact that every anime series eventually has to end. And on average it’s only after 26 weeks. For 26 weeks, you develop favourites, you follow the story, you predict the future, you fall in love with characters or secretly plot murder for others. And even though it’s animation - as far from reality as possible - these characters are real to you and you feel a real bond with them.

Today, I watched the last episode of Ouran High School Host Club. It was lovely from beginning to end. Many thanks to Nic for recommending it in his blog. It is probably now my all-time favourite, although that spot is officially held by Cowboy Bebop. Bebop was what brought me to anime. Ouran is what will keep me interested in anime for years in the future, even at age 23, with a distinctly smaller DVD collection and an average obsession timespan of 2 years.

Yeah…I think I’ll be an otaku for a while to come. It all started with Bebop, Trigun, Kenshin, Chobits, GTO and Ninja Scroll but since then new series like Fullmetal Alchemist, Prince of Tennis, Samurai Champloo, Yakitate!! Japan, the first two seasons of Naruto, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and of course, Ouran High School Host Club cemented it.

Hai, otaku desu~!

And damn well proud of it.

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So, I thought I would follow theheadsage’s lead and write a weekly update on anime that I’m watching and how it’s going.

Gaiban Kaleidoscope
A shoujo (girly) anime about a pro figure skater trying out for the Torino Winter Olympics who gets haunted by a 16 year old Canadian boy who had died in a aerial stunts accident. 12 episodes in the series.

Yakitate!! Japan
I <3 Yakitate!! Next time I go to Kyoto I’m going to visit Pan no Mimi, the bakery owned by the baking consultant for this manga/anime. It is the most fun I’ve had watching an anime…probably ever. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at an anime. The puns and references are gold and it could probably have a drinking game invented for it. Every time I watch the show, I want to eat some bread. Marathon screenings usually require about $20-$30 worth from Baker’s Delight.

Makes me want to find more cooking anime to see if they’re as good. But I think Yakitate!! may be a special case. Sadly, the fansubs come out painfully slowly but still - go watch!

Ergo Proxy
Tried watching this on recommendation of Jean Snow, but haven’t been able to get into it. This is partly because the fansubbing group have for some reason insisted on 1280 x 780 resolution and AAC 5.1 sound which failed, for some reason. All I could hear was the background music. The actual speech was a quiet murmur.

But the main reason it’s not sitting well is that it seems to follow a GITS style story. That means that this will be categorised under what I like to call Headfuck Anime. Headfuck Anime only passes if it can make me laugh too, eg: FLCL, Excel Saga. They are more accurately categorised as WTF Anime.

Meh, I might give Ergo Proxy another episode or two.

Will report back next week with more.

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I had a bit of a joygasm last night when I went to karaoke. There’s usually many thick books the size of phonebooks with the selection of songs. But, these books aren’t all the songs on offer. There’s a smaller book with a temporary selection of songs - a playlist that lasts for maybe 2 months then gets rotated.

Those karaoke machines can hold a terabyte of songs but I guess there’s still too many. When they have to consider English, Korean and Chinese songs.

Anyway, I looked at the thinner book for the first time last night. There were the usual sections - English, Chinese, Japanese, Japa- wait. Japanese twice? What’s the katakana say?

A. Ni. Me.

Sugoi! Anime songs! Nothing but anime songs! Sweet! Heat Guy J! Naruto, Naruto, Ghibli, Ghibli…Cowboy Bebop!

omfgomfgomfgomfgomfgomfgomfgomfgomfg *joygasm*

So yeah, I kicked ass with Yoko Kanno’s Gotta Knock A Little Harder, a song that, despite Eilix’s incessant playing, still strikes me as awesome. Pity that the karaoke version didn’t have the gospel back-up vocals.

Karaoke is so much fun ^_^

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