(No pictures for the time being - I’m terribly sorry but I wrote this late in the evening, and I still have class early the following day.) (more…)

(written on Nov. 2)

I guess that despite shooting all that flak towards A Time to Speak the novel had more of an effect on me than I liked to admit. I did not feel warm or fuzzy, however; nor did I feel awed or inspired with the book despite the author’s mastery of the English language. (Can you use shibboleth in a sentence without consulting a dictionary? That word alone was enough to wow me.) On the contrary, the novel’s aftertaste seemed like a partaking of a most unguent and sialoid gumbo without water to aid one in swallowing it. Swallowing a bitter almond with water may have been an easier task. (Never mind that it may be poison :P) (more…)

There have been a lot of people talking about Kanon or Death Note and it pains me that the anime that deserve mention this season have been kept under the radar for the most part, with many sub-groups over-subbing the said series. Kanon didn’t really get to me as much as Asatte no Houkou did, and although I’ve iterated this quite a number of times already, I still think AnH deserves more discussion than Kanon. I’d like to hear and talk about serious issues rather than hearing a lot of ~UGUUs and ~GAOs – which can be dealt with easier in AnH because the characters themselves are so palpably human. They do not have words that morph into memes overnight; they do not have cute, loli faces that all fall towards the same, decent, average guy – they are simply human: one is depressed having lost a love of yesteryears; one hoped to grew up in advance so that she could avoid being a bane to her brother – problems that plague the regular human being. Don’t we sometimes wish we could be much more help to our parents? When our hearts are broken, are we happy people?

Dealing with issues such as this is what distinguishes AnH from other anime out this season, and I personally am placing it on a pedestal higher than Kanon, no matter how popular it is or how good it seems to be to many people.

I guess I’m killing my parents slowly. Yes, I’ve thought (and still think) I’m pretty smart, but that wasn’t entirely from my perspective: my parents until now think I’m a real genius incapable of failure if I tried hard enough. My teachers of yesteryears similarly think so, and my siblings think I’m some god that they should emulate and obey. Though it may be extremely fun for some, I’m not someone with a god complex. In fact, I only think I’m smart; I don’t know if I truly am. I wonder why some people can’t realize the inherent difference between personal assumption and universal knowledge. (more…)

Warning: a part of the post is blatant fanboying, so you could just skip that part. (more…)