beyond the edge

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle
Thank you CLAMP for finally pulling through with an epic far enough to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If you go into permanent hiatus at this point like you did with the Fuuma stabbing Kamui 5 years ago, you will observe a global spike in voodoo doll sales, in spite of the economic depression. Let us hang our heads and spare one minute of silence for Mr Clonie. I'm expecting more people than this to die though! Don't tell me you're getting soft too, CLAMP (especially after all the eye-gouging and gut-stabbing and arm-amputating).

The scream of a fujoshi

你們……乾脆上演一部同父異母雙胞胎兄弟愛青春校園劇啦！*被群毆*
For people who don't read Chinese, this is two different people =P

Decided to take some caps while watching Kame no Shizukun Kami no Shizuku and the episodes I missed of Bloody Monday. The other Kame pic is from Gokusen.

They're also about the same height too, I think ==;;;; Take-chan (LOL at how Miura calls him that...and then he "accidentally" points at Miura and calls him "Micchan" XDDD)...umm, as I was saying, Take-chan only looks like Kame in certain angles but the likeness in those angles are pretty freaky =0=;;;; I don't know if it's because of their personalities or because of the cultures in their different agencies (most likely both). Kame never seems comfortable in the loud excitable role types that Takeru is just adorable in, whereas Takeru doesn't quite have the Johnny's posturing air for the "cool" quieter roles. Ｊ家培養出來的孩子是形象第一嘛~~ XD

Gundam nothingness
Newtype is such a treasure trove ^^v The TV guide predicts lots of fighting and a "coup d'etat". Bloody katakana (bloody French)...had to look that up. Setsuna also takes forever (2 episodes) to rendez-vous with the ship, and apparently that's a huge handicap. Like, since when was Setsuna so indispensable =__=;;;; The other guys need to upgrade man. Mr Bushido will also make an appearance in Masurao, the kanji of which means "husband" in Chinese, so it's all manners of ewwwww.

But the treasure is this:
( The Gundam Meister Rock Band )
LOL...what the? I'm sick of seeing Saji being shoved in with the Meisters. Just drop dead already zomg. Then Louise can go on an awesome killing spree. I know this is belated and I probably mentioned it before...but I can't believe how quickly Memento Mori got wasted. I thought it was a boss weapon Orz

It's so nice to be, once in a while, able to put up one's feet and watch anime XD Surprisingly, all three anime I managed to catch have gotten off to a strong start. I'm actually most surprised by Vampire Knight, which has exceeded (admittedly, low) expectations.

Nabari no Ou
I've always wanted to read this manga after seeing posters of it around, but I've never been able to find it. Basically it's about the ninja world clamouring over a boy who has the ultimate hidden technique sealed inside him, a power he hasn't learned to use yet but will obviously ultimately propel him to become the King of the Hidden (Nabari no Ou).

It's really hard to decide what genre this anime falls into. It has the palette of shoujo anime, but the action sequences are fluid and dynamic like shounen. There's a lot of anime about the main character having a hidden power just waiting to be awakened, and the main character often turns out to be a bit of a bumhead when that comes about. It's hard to pin down on Miharu, who walks through the show with a bored, imperturbable air mixed with sarcastic cheer.

Normally I'm quite fond of Kugimiya Rie, especially since Gintama, but she does Miharu with all the conviction of whoever did Souma Yuki from Fruits Basket, which is.........really girly!!!

This anime has potential, but it's treading a really precarious path of being trite.

xxxHolic Kei
It's been so long since the first season that I don't know if it picked up where it stopped, but the storyline so far is familiar, in that it's appeared in the manga somewhere.

It has started at a good place, a length of plot that retains the humour of the first season - particularly with the way Watanuki screeches at everyone - but also a bit more meatier on the emotional side, stepping into the spiralling tragedy where CLAMP is most comfortable. Of course, the manga by this time has gotten a lot more depressing as well, with Watanuki's eye problems, then Himawari's secret, and now Kohane-chan's dilemma. Again, there has been no crossover from Tsubasa, and it's hard to say whether it will remain the case for the rest of the season. It will certainly be a pity, because the two manga plots are becoming very intertwined, particularly as the finale is approaching.

And Yuuko-san is still as cool as ever ♥

Vampire Knight
I was a bit iffy about this because the manga depended a lot more on its beautiful art rather than riveting story to sell, and there's a tendency in these gothic ventures to overdo on the wangst.

Surprisingly, from the looks of the first episode, they've hired a great scriptwriter for the show. It's tighter structured than the original manga, introducing a lot of the later elements earlier on and probably providing a better sense of continuity than the original did. It does also add in a bit more dialogue than the original, but this is done unintrusively and doesn't detract from the original feel or flow of the manga. The characters continue to develop in the same way, the humour is still there, and the angst is still subtly brewing under the surface.

Obviously the art can never match up to the original, because Hoshino's style is very distinctly manga and doesn't translate at all well across the medium, but it does well enough on its own, and the chibis are really cute ^^ The colours are interesting as there seems to be two distinct palettes, the bright vibrant shoujo colours, and the dark bluish hues of its gothic undertones, and it switches between one and the other, sometimes to quite jarring effect. As for the voice acting...I can't complain about Miyano Mamoru as Zero, of course!

Miyano Mamoru has been cast as Kamui for Tsubasa: Tokyo Revelations.

Orz

Kamui always gets the most popular voice actors.

Seki Tomokazu, then Suzumura Kenichi, now Miyano Mamoru.

I sniggered at a comment once said by a Chinese reviewer: that Suzumura's whiny brat Shinn Asuka had the (un)popularity of whiny brat Kamui. HAHA.

I feel sorry for Seki though. He probably had the worst version of Kamui ever. It was the only other movie I laughed through when I wasn't supposed to (the other is Star Wars 3). Ahhh...Good memories XDDD I think it was also in canto. Damn.

I prefer Tsubasa's Kamui slightly better, if only because he doesn't get molested as much.

Even though him turning into a vampire + him being twins with Subaru + him being a PROTECTIVE twin of Subaru + him still getting pwned by Fuuma + him being a Chi no Ryuu are totally OTZ OTZ OTZ

( But this made my world incredibly waffy... )

*Weeps*

I thought I'd never see the day when there is justice in the world and Kamui finally gets his PURPLE EYES back.

Which is approximately the only reason I liked him at all, anyway.

T_________T

I have never forgiven the day the anime turned his eyes yellow.

(In other news, Fai is also incredibly pretty♥ And so is Subaru♥ Kurogane is pw....*gets shishkebabed by Kuropin*)

Damn, I have a feeling I'm going to just watch this for the PURPLE EYES and Miyano Mamoru.

Oh, and of course, Fai's "ouch-there-goes-my-eye" scene. Ouch.

Oh, and Real™ Syaoran. Haha. What. I like him. At the rate he's going in the manga, he's going to become my nth-character-I-like-who-dies Orz

It's soooo pretty *___* Her style's much easier than Mokona's for anime adaptation and OVA are always better quality animation than TV anime.

Tanoshimi~~~

I'm craving pho.

....







How the heck did Yuy/Fay manage to read the scroll if he's been stuck in that place for.....well, by the looks of it, at least 4 years? He looked really young when he got locked up.

I guess Valeria is a country with high child literacy rates =0=|||||




...Altador Cup is so damn addictive. Argh.

I like Krawk Island. I like how our "anthem" is "Rum! Rum! More rum! Now!" rather than....something like "we're so adorable, you'll fear our fluffy pink clouds" *ahem*Faerieland*ahem.

I can't believe so many people joined it because of........Pirates of the Caribbean. Come on, that's just sad.

Before the great OTZ....

Muahaha...it's been such a while since I last made an animated gif I've forgotten how to use ImageReady ==;;;; It all worked out in the end XD

I can't believe XXXHolic raws has so little furigana OTZ Where's all my furigana damn it!!! I'm kinda surprised I understood most of it....HAHAHA, poor Watanuki. Doumeki's rare moment of courteousness - giving him a birthday present - turned out to be an apron = a-not-so-subtle-demand for Watanuki to cook for him.

Poor guy XDDD

And what is it with foreigners and their obsession with Zhuang Zhou's "I dreamt that I was a butterfly and flew away, and while I flew I thought I was a butterfly, and I thought I was a butterfly that thought it was Zhuang Zhou. Then I woke up and I realised...I am both the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou." Which is probably the biggest OTZ statement in early recorded Chinese philosophy.

...Yes. CLAMP brings it up in XXXHolic. OTZ.

And then Sakura appears at the end of the chapter.........siiiiigh. I'm really hoping for a swift (thus less painful) finish to both series. Finally, I remembered CLAMP told us the two Rayearth guys' names: Geo and Lantis. Of course. How could I forget. ......>_>;

But my Japanese fails at the most important moments, as always ==;
Watanuki: "Isn't Yuuko-san going to give me a birthday present?" "Oh well, I'm happy just with this."
Yuuko: *Sad smile in front of a cloud of sakura petals* "Sou ne."

It's the first time we see her show ruefulness in front of Watanuki. Her absolute equal-price policy might be what saved her from getting shishkebabed by Fai, but it also means she can't give out any favours for free.



Kino's getting quicker with orders~~~ I went to Kino today on the way to Allan's Music and Lo! Vampire Knight 3 was out on the shelves. I remember when the first volume came out, I couldn't order it until the first orders arrived, the first orders consisted of 4 volumes that arrived 5 weeks later and was snapped up within the first day.

Kino has now fully appreciated its popularity and is giving it a Host Club type release (meaning it's actually on the new releases shelf now and not squished in the publisher's corner, and there's actually enough copies to go around to the first 10 buyers to get there).

Surprisingly, Penguin Kakumei 4 was also there. Was shocked! Less than a month after a release and the book's already in Australia! What next? Not charging AUD13 for a magazine that costs only 400yen? *Gasp*

Alright, I'll keep dreaming...

I suspect I'll start collecting Penguin Kakumei, simply because I'm lacking manga where the characters I give a damn about actually get together in the end ==;;;;;

...DAMN CLAMP!!!

I don't know how many times I've said it since starting to read X (which still reigns as the one manga that got the most DAMN CLAMP's yet, mainly because it went into permanent hiatus on the biggest WTF-est cliffhanger in manga history).

They have to be the only mangaka that I read consistently without any assurance of the main characters still being alive in the end (or the main characters still being the same main characters, or the main character won't wish they were dead instead).

This also continues the trend that all my favourite CLAMP characters have the most screwed up plot lines/personal histories possible (in relative terms, as some of their series are more screwed up than others). And no, Watanuki getting his eye eaten doesn't even measure up.

DAMN IT!!!!

( More incoherent ramblings/spoilers ahead... )

LOL

( The first half of part II )

Overall: It is, again, extremely rushed. It's really not something that one should watch instead of the series. It really doesn't have time to settle into the moods of the series, which in some aspects is good (Athrun and Cagalli moping, for one thing), but in others it makes the relationships less convincing (Stellar especially).

Individual scenes and the dialogue make MUCH MORE SENSE now. Athrun is actually *gasp* cool!! And Shinn is cuter. Kira appears much less (in this episode anyway).


I went back and read X volume 16 yesterday. It's related because Shinn's voice actor did Kamui, and they're both mopey characters who didn't get all that much fan-love (awww). As someone said once, everyone flocked to X to see Subaru, and everyone flocked to GSD to see Kira (awww).

I realised that Kamui is actually really sweet, in the same way that Shinn is ==; It's the kind that you don't usually notice and will probably never notice because by the time it comes through, you're already sick to death of the character.

I also realised why I loved X so much, even though I complain non-stop about CLAMP's marketing ploys. Whatever their commercial techniques, CLAMP's art is beyond a doubt amongst the best in the industry. The symbolism in the construction of panels and the contrast between Subaru and Seishirou...it's obvious, but it's not patronisingly obvious, and CLAMP's flowing, wordless beauty is really quite breath-taking in the empty, sakura petal-filled blackness.

And in the neat, self-contained young man he has become, the shadow of sweet innocent Subaru remains...in the frank, honest gaze and the neverending reserves of gentleness.

;___;



THE 8AM CLASSES ARE KILLING ME AAAAARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!


I went to Kino today. Was standing in the Jap section when a guy crept (I swear, he looked nervous) up to me and asked if I could read Jap, to which I replied "Not really". But he enlisted my "help" anyway and asked how he would known whether the artbooks are coloured or not, and I said "They usually are." And added, "I've bought a few and they were coloured," for good measure. He seemed convinced. I should probably have advised him that my version of "usually" has less frequency than "often".

...When I got back I realised, hmm, his eyes were a really really dark green O___o;;;