To be honest...I've been convalescing this week,
with nothing to do. Somehow I managed to get
through a bunch of the Nana series.... I'm on
episode 38 of 47[?]. It's addictive... and horribly
depressing. Yazawa spins her happy little yarn
about the fateful meeting of two girls, and you're
all innocently caught up in their happy lives....
rooting for the debut of the Black Stones and
praying for the success of Hachiko's wild
love-life....and then Yazawa drops some kind of bomb
on you and whoops, there goes any prospects for
happiness you ever had. Seriously I think I'll need
therapy to recover from this series.
I think it's an honorable pursuit on Yazawa Ai's part. She is working with the parts of heroes and heroines that the reader or viewer should hate. The petty and selfish parts of people...the possessive aspect of love and desire...the painful, greedy need to control and sculpt situations and circumstances. It's a bit of an emotional battle-royale, with everyone tearing each other to pieces. It is really difficult to tell who is right and who is wrong-- mostly it seems to be a mix on everyone's parts. My reaction is totally bipolar, I keep thinking "Grr! I hate you!" and then the next scene I'll be all "Well...you're actually pretty much ok, huh?"
And then it changes again....haha. And even though all
the characters are showing the despicable, most human
sides of themselves, at this point there's so much affection
and tenderness for all the characters that I really can't hate anyone,
even little Hachiko.
I can really sympathize with Ya-san, haha.... He's the wise, quiet,
caring one who everyone runs to when they want to hide from the world
and just cry their hearts out. Sometimes I feel like everyone does that
to me (although I would never be so audacious as to declare myself
any of the above listed adjectives)-- they come crying with their problems
and I sit and listen, even though I want to say "oi, you! I've got problems
too, y'know!" But I guess in the end our friends' problems are our
problems, too, and it's so much easier to deal with their issues than
our own, as I'm sure Yasu would agree.
In fact... somtimes I wish I had a Yasu to go complaining to
when the going gets tough. He has to be one of my favorite
characters; even though he has a smaller role, his presence
is very important. He's something of a symbol of the sanity and
goodness in the crazy world. Or something.
Anyway....I was saying. I also really like the whole aspect of
the celebrities' "real lives" ...and what happens when they mix with
us mortals. Apparently it's not good news...and everyone gets the
painful truth that....dun dun dun! They're mortal too! There is even kind
of an underlying theme at one point where the characters seem to
be trying to figure out if Takumi has feelings [even though he's a
celebrity]. Which is totally unfair....but I was kind of wondering that too....
Ok. My big complaint. In one of the episodes I just watched there
is a scene where BLAST is performing a new song for the producers...
(it's actually the 3rd....4th....ed? for the series) As usual, the vocals
are provided by Anna Tsuchiya. I don't mind Tsuchiya, really...but
for some reason I can't picture Nana singing with her voice. I don't know
why, but it doesn't fit well in my mind, so I don't really go crazy for
the scenes where NANA is singing. Maybe it's just *too* predictable.
I enjoyed the songs that Nakashima Mika did for the NANA movies, and I
really liked Oliva Lufkin's vocals for TRAPNEST-- but the whole NANA
thing didn't cut it for me. Which is a bummer, because the whole anime
is kind of about her and her band. ^_~
GacktPause, over and out~
Wanna know something? Well, I'm kind of peeved at Vox (again). I keep having problems, because apparently I'm the first person to ever be audacious enough to want to put images directly into posts. Now you would think that because this is a feature Vox seems to be kind of proud of, they would make it easy to do. They do, they just also happen to make it very easy to screw up. Somehow I end up freezing Firefox or blasting my
fully-written post into the stratosphere of lost posts and emails...
And then I must get on my knees and pray to the Internet Gods for
forgiveness, may they free me from the karmic bonds of all my great web-wide sins.
That also reminds me. Toshiba-san hasn't been very well recently, which is a cause of
great concern to me. I may have to take him to the doctor-guy for some kind
of check-up, as long as it's "complimentary".
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason things have
been running kind of slow since the middle of the week...Certain
sites have been kinda wonky and such. I'm not sure what could be
the problem, though, considering that I deleted over 300 files and moved
a bunch of stuff onto backup so it wouldn't be weighing down the system.
The internet also takes a while to start up, although that has been a lot
better lately... And the left-clicker is broken. But that happened a long time
ago, haha....
I guess it just isn't all that simple anymore.
Anyway...
I think it's funny, because I had never listened to LM.C before last night.
I didn't even know they existed. But then I was watching... I can't even
remember. It was another long youtube sprint. I was watching something
and one of the "You Might Enjoy..." videos on the selection was...I can't
remember the title, either, but it was an LM.C song with an interesting title.
If my understanding is correct, most of their songs have such interesting titles.
Oh! The song was....no, wait, nevermind. It's no good, I really can't remember.
They finally seem to be a band that doesn't get mobbed with Visual Kei
labels (?)...They're a good example of kei-less rockers, haha. Their look is
really weird...Very '90s. It almost reminds me of more the American band
look... Not in a bad way, just...in a way. I think they sound pretty interesting,
and they stand out of the crowd. Their PVs are very strange... A couple of songs
in particular jumped out at me, and I think this is really exciting, because this week
is the week where I set out to discover all these hit songs that I can't stop
listening to. I'm just lucky if iTunes happens to have the songs I find. ^^
Chemical King Twoon (see, what did I
tell you about weird titles...). Funky, weird, and different...
I have to say, I'm into the music, even if the look doesn't
really grab me. Looks aren't everything, right? Even to a
Kei-elitist such as myself...
おめでとう！
ガクトパー図にお誕生日おめでとう～！
In honor of it being Gacktpause's birthday today! "Otanjoubi omedetou!" courtesy of B'Z.
I really need to stop getting distracted. There are only like 5 weeks
until I leave for Japan! Which is incredible, and crazy. And between
now and then I have so much reading, research, studying, planning
to do.... It's going to be fun, but I'm still feeling lazy...and it's
hard to find the books I want to read. I don't want to shell out the money
to buy them new, but all the books at the library are history books or
totally dated, which doesn't help me at all. Granted I am probably
the first person in decades to take anything out of the Japan section (lol).
The reason I am stewing about this is because I really have to start taking
my studies more seriously. I mean, my kana and kanji skills have hit
rock-bottom.... T__T (tears of despair). But even knowing that, I
haven't been studying very hard, haha. Oh no.... what am I going to do?!
Instead I've been day-dreaming about Final Fantasy VIII all the time. I was
thinking about FFIX, too, but I'm at a part where I've played the game so fast that
my characters are actually under-leveled, so I can't go back but I can't go forward...
Which is lame, because my characters were so cool! I thought I was finally going
to beat it, and then this travesty happened...
I also have an old copy of FFVII (as if any of them areN'T old anymore), but
it turns out I bought it used...and the disc was scratched. I've been meaning
to get it resurfaced for years, but have yet to find someone willing to do it.
FFVIII was actually the first RPG I ever played (I was really young, and didn't
beat it either....there's a pattern here.) I have to say it's not my favorite FF game,
but it's still really cool. I have the soundtrack....and it's so good. Uematsu Nobuo
is a genius-- like the Mozart of video-game soundtracks. I always have to listen to
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec like 5 times before I can continue with the rest of the
CD. ^^
After FF8 I played FF7. It's been forever since I played it... T___T But it's one of my
favorites. I remember being really, really creeped out at the part where you meet Red XIII.
Ahhh...good memories. That game was really hard, but it was so much fun. I like how about
half of the characters are optional. Sephiroth is my favorite character... People say
that's not fair because he's not a good-guy...But he was like, the greatest villain in video game
history! I have a soft spot for villains.
Come to think of it, I don't think I beat that one either. :D This spring I'll probably end
up beating all of the video games I've been putting off for the past 10 years (lol).
Now that I'm older and can take the heat.
Namely, I wanted to talk about something that
isn't music, haha. (But inevitably I will talk about
music here as well, gyah!)
I finally got to read some manga the other day T__T
(tears of joy), which is great because I never get to read
any manga! (at 8.99$ a VOLUME I seriously cannot afford
that kind of hobby, and unfortunately I don't have any friends
with extensive manga libraries.)
I found the first 2 copies of Yazawa Ai's masterpiece, NANA at the
library of all places. I took them both out...and read them all in the
same day (I try and force myself to use self-control and moderation
when reading manga. Unfortunately it takes me a little over an hour
per volume, so they don't last me very long. I haven't gotten to the
point yet where I can read a chapter and then set the thing down.)
They were so good T__T! I then did something very bad and went
to the bookstore, grabbed volume 3, cranked up my iPod and found
a seat in the window....And read the whole thing. Unfortunately
for me, they only let you do that until about Volume 5, and then
everything after that is shrink-wrapped....At that point they'd kinda notice
if you were reading them in the store, hah...hah.
Why is the whole world so stupid that nobody has invented a MANGA LIBRARY
yet? The manga section at the bookstore is populated with delinquents such as myself
who can't afford these massive 34 volume sets at 8.99$ a piece! Ridiculous.
At least it means I still have a life, though. I mean, if there was a
whole library full of manga....that could mean me spending 8 or 10 hours a DAY
in some library chair reading whole series at a time.
(and then forget those lame ideas such as moderation and self-control).
As far as my manga ambitions go, I'm really really interested in reading Re:Play. It's a series
by an American author, but her art rocks...and the storyline is about....a rock band. I read
the first chapter of Volume 1 in Anime Insider, or whatever magazine it was in...can't remember.
(here we go-- music, I just can't resist)....
I've also resurrected my suffering iPod, which has been a debauched
and miserable slew of bad music since I started working. (Due to my
spiritual connection with Jrock, it's not allowed on work-premises...and because
of my fetishistic approach to Jrock, you can understand the trauma I may have
experienced).
I purchased An Cafe's Goku-tama Rock Cafe CD, and Ayabie's Rikkaboshi +A.
Pretty decent. I didn't even know who Ayabie was until recently. I mean, obviously
I liked them enough to buy the CD, but it takes a few listen-tos before you
start to get to know a band.
By the way, here's a great tip for discovering new music: publications like Gothic and Lolita Bible. They have pictures of harajuku and Lolita kids in Japan, and one of the questions they ask is "Favorite band". This is how I learned about Cascade and Ayabie. I think there are a few websites that feature different Fruits-esque shoots and details...If I find them, I'll put them up for your viewing pleasure and convenience!
