I have been able to look at anime from a somewhat distant and consequently rational manner because I have never experienced quite a number of the phenomena it evidences. I would only understand the idea of romantic love empirically, through the eyes of others: I had never fallen in love before, but I knew what love was, and I knew it was the reason why I survived until this day. I had known love, but only of the familial kind.

I’m, of course, not love’s cynic. Otherwise, Honey and Clover wouldn’t be one of my all-time favorites, and Maison Ikkoku wouldn’t even garner any mentions from me. I long realized that I was a romantic at heart, but I was simply never moved by another before. I think I’m not afraid of commitment: my entire life has been my commitment to family. I could have pursued literature, after all. I could have excelled in physics or chemistry. Instead, I chose medicine, and I chose it because I love my family. I am also not afraid of love, but I have never been moved by it in reality.

That was the case until now.

A few days ago, while conducting some preliminary scouting for our research, our group traipsed through the night in Bacolod: it was, after all, a celebratory time. It was Masskara, the festival of masks. There was a street party going on (it was my first time experiencing it), and so there were a lot of people around. During that time I saw the most beautiful woman in the world in my opinion, and it was cathartic, because I never thought I would see anyone as beautiful in reality. Her skin was exquisite china, and her eyes were as colorful as cats’. I would like to say that it was a fairy tale, but being my first time experiencing it, all I could blurt out to her was that I thought she was very beautiful.

Then I was gone. Then she too.

I realize that while I didn’t blush, the romance anime that I like, from the romantic comedies to dramatic tragedies, really reflected the feeling of falling in love. It doesn’t emulate the reality of this existence like well-made movies, perhaps, but it really does reflect it: I had a lump in my throat and I was weak at the knees. It was both an exhilarating and despairing experience: I saw the only girl who ever made me weak at the knees and yet I wasn’t equipped enough to even ask her number, or her name. God both gave me an immense hope and a broken heart, and while I’m grateful for both (it’s been time), it hurts. I want to see her again.

Maybe even if I make mistakes this time I can ask for her name … or her number … or even if I’ll never be able to, just seeing her will probably more than brighten my day.

To the Korean or Chinese mestiza … if you read this … please contact me.

In the past week, I’ve only watched a single episode of a certain anime, and I realized something: the best only get better with time. The DVD re-encodes of niizk of Honey and Clover, the anime that still remains to be my favorite among every anime series I have watched, have reminded me of how majestic the series was. I absolutely loved the prognostication of the first episode: life, indeed, is like a wheel (and this wheel symbolism is something that pervades the entirety of the series). It goes up; it goes down; but it keeps on going on. At the end of the first episode Takemoto explicates to us that there are some things we do yet we don’t know the reasons why, just as there are some things and people we like without knowing the reasons why. Despite everything, however, life must go on.

This belief somehow reminded me of a line in Pablo Neruda’s poem, No Hay Olvido (There’s No Forgetting). It’s actually the last line of the poem. The line goes: ‘and so many things that I want to forget.’ All our lives we are beset by the face and the fact of our own humanity and failures, yet we must go on. We keep on, because to keep on is to keep on living.

I love Honey and Clover. You should, too.

Other than the recent stub, I haven’t really been writing much: I have had to deal with more pressing matters, such as the choice that would dictate all my future endeavors. Writing was among the least of my priorities, if you catch my drift.

I have lately been reading, however, and within the past two weeks (barring my failure with Barthes‘ S/Z), I’ve finished reading Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy and a textbook on neuroanatomy. While more insights could be obtained from Jude the Obscure with most people (and it would also probably be more relevant to them) I rediscovered something in my choice of reading Neuroanatomy instead of other literary texts: in a statement, taste is simply incomprehensible. While I would like to have blown my horn and say that I did it in preparation for medical school (hyuk hyuk), the truth was that I purchased it and read it primarily because the cover appealed to me (it was purple). As most people say, don’t judge books by their cover. There is some truth, however, in that despite my utter lack of understanding with the content as I read the book, it has prepared me for the grueling task of reading a few hours everyday, something I would have to be very familiar with when medical school comes, and something that is currently alien to me (I haven’t exactly been an excellent student in university). For all the reading that I’ve done I could honestly say that I only understood about 10% of the book; and that may even be a gross overstatement. Despite that, at least I could also honestly say that it has somewhat contributed to me honing my patience and perseverance in reading more academic texts.

I think the same can be said with regard to my tastes in anime. I do think that Honey and Clover, Cowboy Bebop and Ocean Waves are great anime, and a lot of people would agree, but I also appreciate and like ToLoveRu, something that erudite and elevated individuals would dismiss as rubbish. I sometimes prognosticate wrongly, like what I did with Toradora (by comparing it to Honey and Clover). I can even bear finishing series like Gin-iro no Olynssis, and I think I’m among the few people who did. It’s ultimately puerile and stupid, not to mention hypocritical trying to comprehend the tastes of others; yet I admit I am sometimes that. Biases just inherently exist within us, I guess, and Roland Barthes explained (in the twenty pages I’ve attempted to understand in S/Z) why subjectivity and objectivity don’t really exist for the most part in reading, or in the appreciation of media: the I who reads (or watches, or listens) is himself a compendium of texts (or music, or video, or movies, or anime). How he perceives a text is grounded in the texts that he has encountered before. Furthermore, reading (or any appreciation of media), isn’t actually a parasitic act. We also write something as we read it. This is why no two texts are appreciated by the same way with different persons. My reading of the neuroanatomy text was merely to complete what I’ve started and simply was due to an irrational impulse; to an aspiring neuroanatomist, however, the text may be a godsend. The difference in appreciation is among what ultimately makes us human.

For now, allow me to be irreverent.

One of the lessons in Yotsuba& is to learn from everything. I’m trying to do just that.

I made you click, didn’t I? This post is not a hate-filled invective, however. (more…)

I am currently celebrating the gifts of a four-day weekend: aside from the regular weekend, there are also two consecutive holidays, thus the absence of classes. It has been quite some time since I have been able to enjoy free time such as this: because of the break, I have been able to pick up on my reading and watching anime.

The previous post may have been trifling for a lot of people. Some people may even have seen it as an eccentricity. It wasn’t for me, however: the point of the post was to seek a buyer despite the fact that I was fully aware the book was valueless and worthless for the most part. The reason was not that I did not have any money: on the contrary, I have a significant amount. The reason was that I wanted to affix some value to the book even if it was only monetary, because it would have signified some worth to the book. (more…)

I had planned to watch ef ever since some bloggers started talking about it, but I also firmly etched in my mind that I will wait until the final episode of ef has been aired. Since the final episode aired some time ago, I started watching ef three days ago. By then there were eleven episodes subbed, so I dutifully downloaded each one. I ventured to marathon the series, but changed my mind after I watched the first episode: it was heavy and relatively emotional without the light-hearted interpellation that characterized Honey and Clover. Consequently, the first episode cemented my decision to view the series piecemeal, one to two episodes at most in one sitting.

These are ef’s main girls.

I finally finished The Interpreters, a novel written by Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. Although his plays were primarily the reason why he won the Nobel Prize, this novel still offers some insight to his genius. (more…)

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