Despite its target audience and simple drawings, Cross Game is one of the more complex series of the previous year, and one of the best ones at that. While the baseball parts are done tastefully, it’s with the interrelationships of the characters that this series really shines. Let’s take our two protagonists, for example. (A word of caution: I watched all 47 released episodes in the span of three days, so while everything is quite vivid to me I cannot remember specifics for the most part.)

The viewer can easily see as early as the fifth or the sixth episode that Aoba has a lot of respect for Ko. It is simply easier for her, however, to hide what she truly feels towards Ko because of her sister. When they were young, Aoba and Ko were antagonistic to one another, and this was primarily because of Wakaba’s love towards Ko. Instead of being able to hog her sister all to herself, she had to share it with Ko and eventually the time they spent together was significantly lessened. As a consequence, she directed her frustrations and hatred to a reason that could be her scapegoat: this reason was Ko. Their bickering continued until Wakaba’s death, and even continued afterward, simply because she was such a palpable presence even beyond her death: the flashbacks were important because both of them treasured the words of Wakaba. Aoba took it to heart when her sister told her that Ko was hers even if he was able to obtain 160 km/h with his pitching. With every move they made, the spectre of Wakaba loomed near. The dreams that she had for her sister and lover surrounded them and pervaded their every move because they both wanted to make her happy. (more…)

I still have to control my fixations with archaic video games. I think it’s been going relatively well, but I’m still fixated with one video game system (Angelus knows, I believe). I also still have to improve upon my writing as a whole, seeing that peers of mine have adjudged a certain work of mine to be highly inadequate. It is difficult to transition into a life going away from video game fixation, but I am trying my best. Having seen the reality of what I desire has poured cold water on the fire of its intensity, but the embers are still there, flickering, and they still contain some heat.

Enjoy!

Life never ceases to be a challenge, but that’s what makes it both painful and enjoyable at the same time. Despite all these persistent problems I am grateful to be alive and to have some people read these rants of mine.

I wasn’t around when the hype machine for Bakemonogatari arrived, and I really just decided to watch the series out of admiration for Hitagi’s character design. Having said that, I do like it a lot, and am thinking more and more of it as belonging to my top ten series. The fourteenth episode just managed to corroborate that opinion.

Oh no.

Truth will out, as they say, and it finally did in this episode as regards to Hanekawa. I have always found it curious why she seemed so unaffected by the change in Araragi’s relationships, but it was all a mask: she just effectively hid her emotions. She tried to hide it so hard, she became extremely stressed by it and released the cat-monster in turn that comes up when she needs to blow her stress off. Some suggestions were offered to the viewer in episode 13: one of the most telling scenes is the conversation between Tsubasa and Koyomi during their bike-ride together. The voice does seem to be nonchalant, but the words themselves intend an internal struggle going on with one of our heroines. (more…)