Inspired and Effected by Anime: Growing up with Sailor Moon

Inspired and Effected by Anime is a series that is going to be random stories about how these particular anime series have effected my life and even inspired change to the way I do things. There are no spoilers in this post. But in all honesty does anyone really care about a Sailor Moon spoilers at this point? XD

I remember getting up early every morning just to watch some Sailor Moon with my sister before we wandered off to school. After school of course was Dragon Ball before we even knew about Sailor Moon, among plenty of others added to the watching list as the years rolled by. But Sailor Moon was special.

My sister adored the show way before I even got into it. My best friend and I would make fun of her to no end about watching it and we even came up with a hilarious spoof song for the intro. I wish I could remember it today because it would make my sister so mad when we would sing it at her. My friend and I were kinda bullies sometimes but never really bad ones. Especially since we were older than my sister. You know how older siblings are when they have friends around to show off in front of.

Anyway at that point we had only sat through the intro and like most intro's seem to be when changed into English, it was terrible. So how could the show be any good? We wondered, so one day we actually sat down and watched an episode. I couldn't even tell you which episode was my first but I know it was somewhere in the later half of the first series. You know the one with Queen  Beryl and when all the sailor scouts were found. Which ever episode it was, it left a very favourable taste in our mouths and we needed to see more.

These days I would never watch a series like that. Basically starting at the end and then going back to see how it all started. It bothered me a little at the time but well, when you are a kid, sometimes order doesn't really matter. Just how entertaining it is. Sailor Moon isn't all that complicated anyway being a magical girl show and all. Girl gets powers, must fight evil, and win the love of the guy she has a crush on. Oh and go to school too cause that's important to having no one find out you have super powers! That is what I assumed anyway even though they looked basically the same when transformed... lol

I remember taping (yeah you know VHS tapes!) almost every episode just so I could re-watch the series any time I wanted too. There would be tonnes of sleepovers that consisted of watching tape after tape of Sailor Moon all weekend, among some other shows for many years after it was finished airing. I started taping the newer episodes as well. This is hilarious to me because one of the sole reasons for the tapes was so I could pause on certain scenes and draw out what I saw. My best friend was WAY better at drawing than I was and could do it all from memory and even make up her own poses, where I of course needed the real thing right there in front of me. My sister too so I didn't feel all that bad. I really liked drawing Sailor Mercury since she is my favourite. If I had a scanner I'd post some of the better ones so everyone could laugh at them but I don't so you'll just have to imagine how "interesting" they turned out. I can't believe I still have those. At least I have SOMETHING from back then that didn't get tossed out.

Pictures above drawn by Tetiel. Very awesome and super cute!

I think out of all the Sailor Moon stuff there is we enjoyed watching Sailor Moon R the most. That's the one with the Black Moon Clan. A lot of my favourite characters along with some of the best scenes in the entire franchise come from this arc as well. Something always draws me to the baddies in anime I suppose. Especially when they are being super awesome in their rolls. Since we enjoyed this season so much we started to mock play with it. This was done between my sister and I. Sometimes my friend would be involved but not often. I remember spending hours making little transformation wands and learning the exact lines and movements for each transformation scenes and using their power scenes. We would spend hours upon hours in our basement playing around, making up new stories and adventures that the scouts and the Black Moon Clan would encounter. Again I wish I still had those wands but parents being parents threw them away.

It was nice when we were at the cottage to play around with this because there was so much more space and we could run around and climb trees. We were so energetic and close back then. Eventually we moved off of Sailor Moon and went at mock play with Mortal Kombat when the movie came out. LOL! After all, martial arts is a little more fun to run around and pretend you are doing than dancing up some magical girl pose. Not to mention playing with bamboo sticks pretending they are swords and staffs! Sometimes I wonder where that part of us went but then I remember, oh yeah, we grew up and moved away from each other. Looking back at times like this makes me happy that I had a sister that was so close in age to me because we could play together and not feel "uncool" about it. At least we still say stupid stuff and laugh at one another when we think back to this Sailor Moon time of our lives.

Like a lot of other anime fans out there, I have Sailor Moon to thank for helping me get more into anime. Sailor Moon was a great gateway anime to get me started with baby steps. Much like Dragon Ball was too. Sometimes I wonder why we didn't do the same kind of thing with Dragon Ball, but I suppose it could be that we are of course girls. Even if we were pretty tomboyish girls when we were young, there was still enough girlishness to us that drew us to Sailor Moon for play instead. Thank you Sailor Moon and thank you for helping me bond further with my sister too. We are magical girls at heart always. Good times!

Aniblog Tourney Thingy Round 2 – Vote For Me!

I told everyone earlier about Round one of this interesting little contest. What I didn't follow up on is that I made it to Round two!

So thanks everyone for voting for me and you are all needed once more to vote for me again so I could possibly make it to round 3 (Where I'll get slaughtered but it's still fun!)

The new poll closes in a few days and I'm only behind by a few votes! It's going to be another close one like the first time. So vote for me again and we'll see what happens! Don't forget to take a look around at all the other polls still opened. There's a lot of awesome other bloggers that could use some votes too. ^__^"

If anyone has some suggestions that would help make Oishii Anime just a little bit more interesting don't hesitate to leave a comment! I love feedback and that's what I've benefited the most from this little contest journey so far. From round 1 someone said things were a little hard to navigate so I added an anime search bar that you can quickly see all the anime covered in the bloggy. Also added picture on the side featuring the "Character of the Day" so that it is easy to tell when I have a new one up. I made a new blog roll page and have a random 10 awesome blogs show up on the main page that are different with every refresh. The old one was pretty long and getting a little crazy.

I'm heading off to Anime North in the next few days so look forward to a post about that when I get back. It's going to be a fun weekend because I know a lot more people going to this one, where when I went to Anime Boston I knew no one but did meet a few fellow bloggers which was awesome.

Anyway don't forget to vote for me!

Macross 7 The Flower Girl

What was her point exactly? I don't think anyone really knows honestly. She was just there in every single episode trying to give her flowers to Basara. Why? I guess to describe a devoted fan or something. Which I can relate to because I sat through Macross 7. I'm not saying the show is terrible, but considering how amazing the other series have been in the Macross franchise, I'd definitely say it was the weakest by far. Macross 7 basically lets loose and it lets the viewer know it.

Flower Girl really is amazing. She even managed to be a part of the specials Macross 7 put out.

I was amazed when I went through every episode of Macross 7 that she was in every single episode. There was a lot of down time or what?! Most of the time she was in a crowd waiting to hear Fire Bomber in a concert. Or she had her mouth opened in awe. I still can't figure out why she was there in the first place. Maybe because the creators thought she was a funny addition to the show that she was put in there. After all who doesn't like to play "Where's Wally" (Waldo in the USA) while watching tv?

Episode 31 didn't physically have her in the episode but she was in every picture that was taken of Basara for a magazine. Personally I think that's just a tad creepy and I wonder why there wasn't a little blurb about her in those magazines for being #1 fan. If the writers really wanted to be creative I think they should have done that. Why else was so much time invested in her?

Episode 45 something pretty big happens, but how our little Flower Girl knows about what just happened is a mystery to me. I really liked how such a little movement in her eyebrows can show such a deeper emotion of sadness.

Episode 49 the moment we were all waiting for in one way or another.

So after all that our sweet little Flower Girl accomplishes her sole purpose in Macross 7 and Basara tosses them aside! After all he did have slightly more important things to do.

Flower Girl is what happens when the writers are up at 4am in the morning brainstorming on no sleep. I can't say I enjoyed her character a lot because well... She was weird filler. I don't hate her as much as I did in the beginning either. At first it was like "Oh go away already Flower Girl." but it soon turned into "Will she do it this episode?" or "When will she show up and how?" It gave me something else to look forward to while watching Macross 7. I generally blocked everything out that didn't have to do with Gamlin or Max anyway. I don't understand why Flower Girl likes Basara so much but then again I was never a fan of his myself. Fans do crazy things!

Flower Girl proves she is #1 fan! Only #1 fans go to those limits for their obsession. Weather it's collecting everything and anything the person put out or watching/going to every single show. In a way, Flower Girl is like a lot of anime fans. Sometimes it's nice to obsess over one thing and learn all you can about it and own as much as you can.

A Canadians first trip to Anime Boston

So I decided to go to this con at the very beginning of the year. We have friends that live in Boston so I figured it would be a lot of fun to visit them and go to a con other than Anime North. (which is the only other con I have been to) I gotta say I was highly impressed with Anime Boston and I do plan to attend again next year. Anime Boston 2010 was held on April 2-4. I'm aware that it's been a while but I've been busy since I got back with real life situations that has delayed my post a little. (ok a lot)

We drove down from Quebec, Canada on the 1st as we wanted to get settled in a head of time and enjoy in full what the weekend had to offer. Long car rides kill my back as well so having a day to rest before trying to marathon walk for a weekend was much needed. After it all, I was nice and sore for a week after but it was worth it. We had lovely weather while we were down there too which was nice because apparently it had been raining for a solid 2 weeks before we got there. Boston drivers will always scare me. Learn how to drive please! Unlike Anime North, everything at Anime Boston was in one building that you could easily walk from one place to the other. I REALLY liked this aspect of it as I saw way more things that I wanted to because I could find where everything was easily. The building seemed to go on forever. There was a lot of walking done.

I meet the author of The Anime Almanac and he was really nice. He introduced me to some others that he knew but I completely forget their names. I saw the author of JanaiBlog from a distance because I was too shy to go up and say hi the first time I saw him (sitting in the moe panel of course) and he left early when I was going to say hi to him after the FUNimation Industry Panel. Which was a very interesting panel to attend. I ended up going to a lot more panels than I thought I would but I gotta say all were really fun. There was a manga panel with one of the weirdest guys running it and I always wanted to argue with his points because for the most part he was way off. One of the best panels I attended was done by The Department of Alchemy called Impact of Evangelion. I meet him too but said nothing other than 'hi nice panels this weekend.' And basically ran away afterwards, I'm a really shy person heh.

The highlight of the con was a performance by the Video Game Orchestra! This alone was worth all the money spent in getting to Boston for the con. Another highlight of the con was the guest of honour Nobuo Uematsu. We attended every panel he was doing and it highly inspired my boyfriend to continue what he loves doing and that's making music. He even played with the VGO when they were preforming! The most memorable things he said was the answer to this question. "How did you come up with the opening theme to Final Fantasy?" His answer was that one of the guys came to him at the last minute and said we need a little diddy for the opening of the game. Can you do one please? He of course said ok and wrote a little tune in literally 5 minutes and it has become one of the most well known songs ever among video game players. I also enjoyed his response to "What was your first instrument?" He said it was the guitar and later he picked up the piano and said they are basically the same cords/notes wise but the piano is easier to use so he prefers it. LOL awesome! Here's the video we took of him playing with the VGO. (sorry about the sound quality)

Saturday night we ventured into the "rave" and I gotta say that was entertaining and fun. There was some pretty crazy stuff going on in there and the DJ was pretty awesome too. I'm generally not one for "8-bit" music but it was fun to hear and see everyone having a really good time. The only thing that wasn't so cool was seeing all the cracked out kids sitting on the floor outside of the entrance. LOL We got a really fun little video here of some kind of robot surfing the crowd. (again sorry about the sound quality)

The cosplay was like any others honestly. There was some really amazing ones and some not so amazing. I took some pictures but most didn't turn out very well so I'll link to a thread on the AB site that has a lot more pictures than I could have ever provided for those that are interested. I did cosplay myself but it wasn't 100% and honestly I just didn't have the money to get my hair done the right way. It's not like anyone would have recognized me anyway. I went as Nanako Yamamoto from Hanamaru Youchien and my boyfriend went as Naozumi Tsuchida. I made the aprons myself and I personally think they turned out really well.

The dealers room was about what I expected it to be. It was split into 2 rooms that were joined in the middle by a hallway. I was impressed at how much stuff there was but I honestly didn't see a lot of really amazing deals. I didn't end up getting anything because we ended up spending our money on parking. We drove there each day from just outside of downtown. I suggest not doing this and using public transit or walking if you can. Hell, get dropped off and picked up at the end of the day if you can. The parking costs were stupid but couldn't be avoided on this trip for us. Next year we shall be better prepared for that.

Anyway there's my review. Better late than never! Next up is Anime North in pretty much 2 weeks. I promise to have my report from that up way sooner than this one ended up being. Overall this was a very enjoyable experience and I'm sure I'll be back next year. ^__^

Aniblog Tourney Thingy – Vote For Me!

So Scamp and some lovely helpers put together a Tournament where blogs are put up against one another in a voting way. From there people get to pick which ones they like the most between 2 and vote for it. Nice and simple! It's also a good way to take a look at some blogs that you might not have found otherwise. (I suppose like mine XD) Amazingly my blog was in put into the list of competitors and the voting started last Thursday for mine. I didn't think too much of this because I thought I didn't have much of a chance getting to Round 2. Round 1 is coming to a close in a few days and you'll have a week after that to vote for the remaining polls opened. Of course mine is still opened and closes this Thursday so if you haven't voted for Oishii Anime yet I would highly suggest you do so NOW!

I'm actually neck and neck with my competitor! It's a little exciting to see that I do have quite a few followers since I didn't expect to get any votes at all honestly. I actually expected to get creamed because I'm very new to the anime blogsphere and my opponent has been around for a whole lot longer. So if you like what you see here and enjoy what I do please go and vote for me. You guys should also vote in all the other polls too because there's a lot of awesome ones in this little contest that are way more deserving than I. With Round 2 coming it's bound to get a little more interesting. I know I probably won't make it past round 2 but if I make it past round 1 that's good enough for me!

So far from this little experience I have gotten some nice feedback that I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise. I hope I've gained a few new readers as well. (Hi to new people! ^__^) I hope to put out more interesting stuff soon that will get people commenting a little more and I hope people are liking the character of the day posts! If anyone has any further feedback please leave a comment! Thanks again!

365 Days of Anime Characters 100+ Done

365 Days of Anime Characters 2010

With over 100 done so far I didn't expect this to turn out as well as it has. (At least I think it's going well) It's been a lot of fun so far and it's always been interesting to see which characters get comments and which ones don't. Obviously the more popular the character is the more interest they will have. But surprisingly a lot of rare characters have been getting comments when I thought they would get none.

In the beginning I was going to write a whole bunch up and just post each one day by day. That never happened and I find myself writing these up each day. It hasn't been too difficult to do this unless I was out of town, but I still managed to do the posts even when I have not been at my computer. When possible I take my own screen shots of the character and use those because I don't like most of the ones that turn up for some characters on say google search and whatnot. It's nice to be a little unique. Each day I generally have no idea which character I will do and pick it at random. Sometimes I chat with people and ask them what characters they would like me to do/see.

The only character that came remotely close to not being posted on its day it was suppose to be was Sailor Mercury's. I was just getting back from Boston after some New Year's celebrations and we were a little behind because of a snow storm. So I wrote that entire post up in 10 minutes with 1 to spare before the day changed. I can't believe I got my images ready in that time because generally those take me the longest to do as I'm a little picky at times.

I've already done my favourite character of all time, Yang, on my birthday because I thought it was fitting to do someone I really loved on that day. My most hated character of all time, Nagisa, I did too. I choose day 100 just because I thought that having done 100 characters was a little special and I needed to mark it with a memorable character. Shinmaru made the most memorable comment on her post of all the character posts I have done.

If any readers out there have suggestions of which characters they would like to see done, please leave a comment and hopefully I'll get around to them. The only restrictions I have on this is the character can't be from an anime I have already done and I have to have actually seen the anime myself.

Thank you for reading these posts. I know sometimes they aren't all that special and can be well a little boring. But I try to entertain as much as possible. I'm still kinda new at this blogging thing after all.

The Beginning of the 365 Days of Anime Characters 2010

The Gundam Universe

I am NO expert on any of the Gundam universes, but I have scoured the internet over many, many sites to gather all this information to accomplish my goal for this year, which is to watch ALL of the Gundam titles I can get my hands on. I hate trying to look at all the information on all separate pages so I'm making this to have all the information in ONE spot. If there are mistakes or missing series leave a comment and I'll revise. It's a big Gundam world and it's a little hard to wrap the brain around sometimes. (Especially when you haven't even seen any except Wing).

There are 7 different Universes that make up this giant franchise. Each can be watched separately from the others. There is no "perfect" way to watch them. If you want to be old school you can start from the very first one made (Universal Century) and go from there in a semi chronological order airing wise. I included the year aired to make this a little easier. The way they are listed in each time line, is the order they "should" / "suggested" to be watched in.

Here we go!

Universal Century

- Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO: The Hidden One Year War 3 OVA (2004)

MS IGLOO: Apocalypse 0079 3 OVA (2006)

MS IGLOO 2: The Gravity Front 3 OVA (2008)

- Mobile Suit Gundam 43 eps (1979-1980)

Movies

Mobile Suit Gundam I (1981)

Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow (1981)

Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space (1982)

- Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team 11 OVA (1996-1999)

The 08th MS Team: Last Resort 1 OVA (1999)

- Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket 6 OVA (1989)

- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory 13 OVA (1991-1992)

Movie

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: The Last Blitz of Zeon (1992)

- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam 50 eps (1985-1986)

Movies

Zeta Gundam A New Translation: Heirs to the Stars (2005)

Zeta Gundam A New Translation II: Lovers (2005)

Zeta Gundam A New Translation III: Love is the Pulse of the Stars (2006)

- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ 47 eps (1986-1987)

- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack MOVIE (1988)

- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn 6 OVA (2010)

- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 MOVIE (1991)

- Mobile Suit Victory Gundam 51 eps (1993-1994)

Future Century

- Mobile Fighter G Gundam 49 eps (1994-1995)

After Colony

- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing 49 eps (1995-1996)

Operation Meteor 2 OVA (1996)

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz 3 OVA (1997)

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz Special edition MOVIE (1998)

After War

- After War Gundam X 39 eps (1996)

Correct Century

- Turn A Gundam 50 eps (1999-2000)

Movies

∀ Gundam I: Earth Light (2002)

∀ Gundam II: Moonlight Butterfly (2002)

Cosmic Era

- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED 50 eps (2002-2003)

After Phase: In the Valley of Stars 1 OVA (2003-2004)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny 50 eps (2004-2005)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny 2 Specials (2004-2005)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED C.E. 73: Stargazer 3 ONA (2006)

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: The Movie (TBA)

Anno Domini

- Mobile Suit Gundam 00 25 eps (2007-2008)

- Mobile Suit Gundam 00 S2 25 eps (2008-2009)

Movie

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Movie (2010?)

Random

- Gundam Evolve 15 OVA (2001-2007)

This series are shorts that span across all the Universes. So I would suggest watching after you have seen all the other Gundam's.

(Once I watch it I will be able to fill in what episodes go with which universe)

- Superior Defender Gundam Force 52 eps (2004)

This series is separate completely but makes references to Universal Century, Future Century, and the After Colony time lines. So best watched after you have seen those ones.

(Totally looks like it is aimed at kiddies as well so be weary)

And finally here's a list of random deformed specials that go along with each of the listed series above. They are chibi gundam's and generally extras to be watched after you have seen the series they relate to. (I assume). I believe there is more than I listed here but I can't 100% confirm right now.

Super Deformed Gundam

* Mobile Suit SD Gundam Mk I (1989)

* Mobile Suit SD Gundam Mk II (1989)

* SD Gundam's Counterattack (1989)

* Mobile Suit SD Gundam Mk III (1990)

* Mobile Suit SD Gundam Mk IV (1990)

* Mobile Suit SD Gundam Mk V (1990)

* SD Gundam Side Story (1990)

* SD Gundam Scramble (1991)

* SD Gundam: Dawn of Paparu (1991)

* SD Gundam Festival (1993)

* SD Gundam Mushaparaku (2001)

* SD Gundam Mushaparaku 2 (2003)

* SD Gundam Force (2004)

* SD Gundam Sangokuden Brave Battle Warriors (2010)

Photo by kzaral

Again, if there is something you think is a mistakes or missing series/information leave a comment and I'll revise.^_^ I made this, for the most part, for myself. But if others also benefit from this awesome.

Over on We Remember Love there is also a helpful tool for those who are looking to start a series of gundam but don't quite know how to choose which one. Click to enter the gateway and maybe it'll help you find your gundam match!

Diary of an Anime Lived: Now and Then, Here and There

This post shall be part of Digitalboy's Diary of an Anime Lived series. Many others have put their truly human stories into these posts and I figured I'd share one of my own.

This post is pretty personal to me and holds spoilers for the anime Now and Then, Here and There. So if you haven't watched it I urge you to go and watch it before reading this. Not only to understand this post but to really experience a truly great anime as well. Sure it might be hard to watch for some but it's definitely worth the watch.

Basically this story takes me back to high school... the second time around. The first time I had to quit because I had medical issues that I just couldn't fight while trying to attend math class at 8am in the morning. Every morning. Sure not that early to some but when you have a sleeping issue where your body pretty much makes you a cat for 20 hours of the day, it's a little hard to get up for that class so early in the morning, let alone have teachers willing to care about helping you get caught up. (because you have no friends that will bring you the work being 100% new to the school and all as well).

Anyway I was put back a year because of this medical issue. Which means I was in my sisters grade from then on. (we are 14 months apart age wise). I had no friends in hardly any of the classes I was in and what little ones I did have that were my own age, they didn't really want to hang out with me because of this issue. *tear* Sure it sucked big time but whatever I was only there to learn, pass and get a piece of paper saying "I DID IT!" whoop-de-do!

Somehow through this time I found "love". It was the first time I felt so strongly about someone that I just went with the motion against all the warnings I got before hand about it. We meet for the first time (not really the first but the first he "noticed" me or that an actual girl called out to him), after school while I was walking home towards the bus. It was winter so it was cold. For some reason I missed my bus (not really), and took the time to wander with this boy around the mall. Eventually we got a little tired and sat down near the food court warming each others hands up by holding them tightly over the table talking. *barf*

Anyway that's how I met "him". I thought we were in love. Like any first love it's always the stupidest. (unless you are super lucky). I always think of that song "The first cut is the deepest" because well fuck. I'm still messed up from that fucked up situation and everything that happened. We were miserable from the start. His parents (mom mostly) hated me (because I wasn't Asian...wtf she married a white man...). And on top of that he had mental issues. Now I'm sure everyone is saying yeah yeah everyone at that age has mental issues. BUT not everyone is on prescribed drugs for said issues, freaks out when off of said drugs (who knows why!) and beats his gf FOR NO REASON... over and over again.

I being a fool wanted to stand by him and help him with his problems. His home life sucked, he hated school (even though he got perfect scores), and claimed to love me; what person wouldn't stick around to help out the one they thought they loved. Eventually that love faded after numerous abusive encounters. I was too afraid to actually just pick up and leave him because he would just hunt me down and call constantly. (which did happen when I finally grew balls).

But before I got away from this person the saddest worst thing (one of the worst things anyway) happened to me... not quite as drastic as Sara  (this is where it starts to relate to the anime) but just as painful... I was raped by him.

I never told this to anyone before so openly. Only certain people know. I'll never forget the first 2 people I told my story to later on down the road of life. They were random friends and just always wondered why I seemed like an empty shell even though I showed so much energy. Most people couldn't see through that act but these 2 did. My best friend at the time (still is) of course knew but never pushed me on the subject. Probably a good thing because he kept me from killing myself on several nights. The most memorable of nights was in winter on valentines day, I had drank excessively and fast after a terrible day. I called him before I left my house to go drowned myself in the river where we both lived near by.

Like Shu did for Sara, (slightly less harsh) my friend found me just before I jumped in and just told me how much he alone would miss me and doing something like that would just let "him" win in the end. Sara desperately wanted to die and she knew she was caring a child as well. (who knows if this is true but fuck). I too wanted to die. Not only because this had happened to me but because *I* let it happen to me after ALL the warnings. I was lucky and knew I wasn't pregnant after the incident because he made me walk to the clinic in the pouring rain, in lots of pain (it fucking HURTS for a girls FIRST time) to be sure of it. Made me get pills that made me be sick for 2 days afterwards just to be 100% sure. I dunno what was going through his head at the time but honestly I don't give a shit anymore. It was wrong.

I guess this story is about hope. Shu didn't want Sara to die over something so terrible that she was still alive from. Sure it blew ass that it happened but it wasn't worth getting all worked up over to that extent. Hard truth I suppose. I went through the same thing. In the end neither of us ended up finishing off our lives because of a friend. I dunno if Sara really saw Shu as a friend but I'm sure glad mine was there in one of my worst times of need.

The Most Anime Birthday I’ve Ever Had

So on the 16th of January it was my birthday and I wasn't expecting anything at all to be honest. Really just expected a quiet day alone with anime and my boyfriend. We started out by watching Naruto for about 6 hours. LOL that's right Naruto on my birthday. I don't even overly enjoy the show (don't hate it either) but my boyfriend likes it a lot. I made a post about it here. I haven't been wanting to watch anymore Naruto since then either haha.

I made my character of the day post about my favourite anime character ever, Yang Wen-li. <3 (great picture from ghostlightning's blog) He's super awesome and I hope more people watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes. I actually plan on re-watching it sometime. Probably not this year though unless I manage to get through more of my other anime goals. Mononoke, Kaiba, My-Hime (plus all relations), Simoun (all enjoyed by me!) and started Naruto is all I've done so far off of that list. I'm going to start watching Nodame Cantabile very soon because of the current airing Finale. I plan on making February Macross month. So expect a lot of Macross posts in the near future.

Anywho back to the birthday. After all that Naruto and blogging I went to sleep. Woke up to someone at the door. It was a friend from Montreal that my boyfriend invited down to celebrate with us which was a super awesome surprise because he brought beer and gifts. So after bumming around for the day at home we went out to a nice Thai dinner where another friend from the area meet us. She brought a lovely bottle of wine as a gift to me that was literally dressed in jeans. Has a cute pocket and everything.

After that delicious dinner we returned home to watch some movies and open presents I went to the computer to check my e-mail and messages only to have all the lights turned off and people started singing  "Happy Birthday" and a cake entered the room. This cake right away made me laugh. I'm a weird gal so I expect weird when it comes to gifts and whatnot. This cake had what looked like a dead clown on the top made of bright icing. LOL

We moved to the kitchen to slice up that cake and start on gifts. Took some silly pictures of the slicing action as well hehe. First I opened my friend from Montreal's gift. It turned out to be a book. But not just any book. An anime book! More specifically "Manga: The Complete Guide" by Jason Thompson, published at the end of 2007 so it isn't even that much out of date. It's super awesome as well because this book will help me with my manga goal for this year to read more than just one shots. It tells all sorts of information about over 900 different series.

Then it was time to open my boyfriends gifts. He had 2 bags of stuff that I wasn't expecting. First bag had some awesome chocolate and random pocky that he actually found at the local grocery store. There was some delicious port in there as well and a hilarious CSI Miami card with Horatio Caine on it (points to the wine bottle picture) and he says something about looks (it was a talking card). Very hilarious. After giggling over the card for a while, I opened the second bag and this is where things got totally awesome.

Inside there was a green box. The same green box that comes from a local store around here. In the past I have gotten sheep (I have a sheep figurine collection) from this store in said box, so obviously I was expecting another sheep treasure to add to the sheep masses (there's more where those come from).

Boy was I wrong. Inside there were 9 little Hetalia mini figures .  I love this show to bits and was super excited. These are my first figures EVER haha. They came with flattened boxes that my boyfriend took out and showed me right away, along with one bigger box, also flattened. Sure I have anime posters, some manga, and dvd's  but I never ventured into the figure part of my anime obsession because, well, I just don't have that much money kicking around.

He then showed me another little bag that was filled with more little figures. They are all Final Fantasy characters that he said came with the deal he found wherever he got them. Now FF isn't exactly anime but having little figures of these characters is just as awesome as anime because FF is awesome. They also came with an awesome engrish message that had a little sun magnet attached to it made out of wood. Very random lol.

So now I have all these little Hetalia guys staring at me surrounding my computer screen. We put the FF characters downstairs in the studio where a lot of other strange oddities surround them. This was the most anime oriented birthday for me ever. Generally it's only me getting anime goodies for myself but I think that more and more of my friends are starting to understand my small little fandom world of anime.

After this wonderful day I managed to catch a terrible cold that knocked me out for a whole week which is why all you saw was character posts last week. I feel kinda bad about that as it is so early on in blogging journey but well... these things happen. At least I was conscious enough to do my characters. I'm feeling "better" now and back to doing what I love. Writing, chatting, and watching lots of anime.

(P.S. I know I suck at taking pictures )

Resolutions Anime Style! UPDATE!

So from my first post I made a list of new years anime goals but didn't list quite everything for some reason. Might have been due to the fact I wasn't at home at my computer on new years but whatever. (not cause I was drunk of course not ) There's definitely more than 5 goals I have set for myself to conquer this year. Here's the completed list. I'll list some personal goals as well that have nothing to do with anime.

Anime:

1. Watch the list from my AP peers and make reviews for them (See list below)
2. Finish watching the "purplemo" list (everything that is still on my WTW list on AP)
3. Read more manga (not just one shots)
4. Watch all anime that starts airing in 2010 (some exceptions apply)
5. Go to Anime North actually in cosplay (suggestions needed)
6. Get involved with Otakuthon (in Montreal, WAY closer than AN )
7. Watch all of Naruto (Shippuden + Movies)
8. Watch ALL of Gundam (that I can get my hands on anyway)
9. Watch all of Macross (been putting that off for too long)

List of anime to watch for my AP peers:

• Black Lagoon~
• Nodame Cantabile
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
• Simoun*
• Onegai My Melody (the ONLY one I'm not looking forward to >.<)
• Dennou Coil
• Texhnolyze
• Utawarerumono
• Peace Maker Kurogane
• Night Head Genesis
• Stellvia of the Universe*~
• My-Hime*
• Sky Girls
• Initial D
• Monster
• Mononoke~
• Kaiba~
• Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan~
• Chrono Crusade*

* means on the purplemo list as well      ~ means really looking forward to

Personal:

1. Loose what little tummy fat I have (sit-ups >.<)
2. Use my exercise ball more
3. Get outside everyday that isn't too cold and walk around for at least 30 minutes
4. Don't leave EVERYTHING till the last minute
5. Figure out more ways to make money working from home
6. Don't sweat the SMALL stuff
7. Try to get in better health so I'm able to get a job (not too sure how to handle this one)
8. BE HAPPY