Is anyone here unfamiliar with Doraemon? I hope that isn’t the case. But for those who are, Doraemon is one of the longest-running anime series of all time. The heroes of this series are Nobita, a child struggling with bullying and everyday life, and Doraemon, the eponymous character of the series, who is also robotic cat with a lot of gadgets to aid Nobita’s difficulties. To date, the series has already aired more than a thousand episodes and is still going strong. The plot is episodic: the duo have new digressions and misadventures with each new episode. I can understand children (and even adults) enjoying Doraemon; consequently, I can understand why some people (like Daniel, for example), love Tristram Shandy. (more…)

I have been writing about literature and not about anime in my previous posts; I thus decided not to write anything unless I watched an episode of anime. Life hasn’t been lenient on me, however: as my close online friends know, I have had to fix my parent’s PCs (I’m pretty versed in the removal of spyware), and that has eaten up a considerable amount of my vacation time: I was not able to watch any anime because of those responsibilities.

Because we’re all hot for genderbent Tieria

I think I know a good deal about physical suffering. But this is the worst of all, to feel your soul dying. -Malcolm Lowry

I didn’t like Under the Volcano as much as other casual readers or critics did. But with a line like that, I could recognize its status as a classic of 20th century literature.

I never intended to write a blog post, but this is a personal blog as well as an anime blog, and I believe I have something to say.

I didn’t really want to write here: I initially planned to write a review on Amazon about Absalom, Absalom!, the novel I just finished reading, but they had a new policy disallowing reviews unless people bought from them. For shame. I know that for many people Faulkner is difficult: he’s very difficult for me, too. I think I possess, however, something that most people do not have when it comes to reading: I have patience (yet also haste). The Sound and the Fury took me four tries to finish, but I finally did complete it. Absalom, Absalom! was the same experience. (more…)

I still dislike Ergo Proxy. The appearance of Disney characters was just too much for me, and it didn’t help that the allusions of the series did not really improve one’s understanding of the show. The series also had inconsistent animation. There were times, however, when the series stepped up to bat and retained some of the awesome quality that it had in its first two episodes: I loved the series’s portrayal of their wasteland, and I also loved the episode where Re-l for a moment represented Ophelia, a character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

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Andrew wrote a well-thought and concise editorial here. He observes the spread of microblogging among more prominent members of the anime blog-sphere, and argues that these probably have come into existence because these prominent writers are often recognized with their styles and have been known to write such and such as conventions. This allows them to be unique with regard to other bloggers but also sacrifices their ability to be creative with their posts, as their readers often recognize them through their styles. While I cannot speak for Paul, I think I can speak for Daniel.

(Daniel has agreed with this impression of mine generally, but he adds that this seems to be the case only for English literature-cum-language courses in the UK, and does not include Creative Writing courses.) (more…)

… where angels fear to tread.

Attenborough’s the one with the pink and violet striped shirt. He wears eyeglasses.

While some of us may be perverts, let me try (hopefully, in the next posts) to prove that we can also do a lot of things well in our lives.

I’m often glad whenever a novel or an anime series mentions the Philippines in either anime or literature (which are my favorite media). When the first episode of Black Lagoon mentioned Philippines (I think it was an island in Basilan, or something), I smiled. It doesn’t happen much.

Doesn’t he look African-American in origin?

The lack of updates can be attributed to a very taxing (yet supererogatory) paper on Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel Tripmaster Monkey. I am grateful to all the people who have helped me. Special mention must be made regarding Daniel, who, despite with his exams of Shakespeare allotted some time to help me organize my paper; Shance, who shared my paper to Daniel because I could no longer stay awake and offered insight on the paper as well; and Andrew, who read my paper but was sidetracked by a terrible migraine.

Someone please give this to me.

This is not an excuse: I do have an exam in a few hours.

Wise beard man does not approve