masterofmidgets | Entries tagged with anime

Three Things (The Almost Christmas! Edition)

1. OMG BAKING. I feel like I end up doing more cookies every year, or maybe it's just that I keep deciding to try completely new kinds of cookies so that I never get a holiday routine going to settle into. In any case, the last few days I've barely left the kitchen. Wednesday I made refrigerator dough and baked 10 dozen sugar cookies. Yesterday was raspberry pinwheels, again about 10 dozen, which were...not the most successful experiment. I rolled the dough out too big before I rolled them up with the jam, and put the first few batches too close together on the baking sheet, so instead of neat little spirals I ended up with a kind of crazed Lovecraftian geometry. Still interesting looking, though, and pretty tasty, so at least they aren't a total write-off. I also made about as many plain chocolate cookies to use for peppermint sandwiches. And today I made 4 dozen chocolate-cherry biscotti. Tomorrow I am making approx a million pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, and then I have to ice the sugar cookies, make the peppermint sandwiches, and do a raspberry-chocolate dip for the biscotti, and then my dad's girlfriend will be coming over to help box them up to give out. AND THEN I WILL BE DONE UNTIL NEXT YEAR.

2. OMG YULETIDE. I am slowly but steadily chipping away at it - lots of procrastinating, but a big step up from last year or the year before. And I'm only panicking a little about getting it done in time! I hit 1000 words a little earlier tonight, and I've just about made it into the main part of the story. Someone had already been punched in the face, and soon there will be stabbing. And so many more words. Whyyyy did I decide I needed a plot?

3. OMG RUROUNI KENSHIN TRAILER. I am so ridiculously gleeful about this movie. I feel like I'm in 7th grade again, camping out in front of the tv after school to watch the latest episode on Cartoon Network. Saaaaaaaaano ♥

Another round of finals successfully punched in the face, yay! I was hoping for the grade in my music class to be a little higher, but a B+ is pretty okay, and I did play a bit fast and loose with some of the assignment deadlines, so it's probably the grade I deserve. And on the bright side, I got an A in Poetry and Poetics! Let me say that again: I GOT AN A IN POETRY AND POETICS. I cannot even begin to explain what a relief this is for me. I'll finally be able to talk to Professor Boland without feeling like a cringing mass of guilt and failure now. Go me!

Also, my Genre Fiction professor thinks I'm awesome. This is from his (page and a half long, he is VERY THOROUGH) feedback on my final research paper/final grade:

"Your participation in seminar was excellent: yours were regularly the most insightful and original comments in the class session. I especially valued your ability to synthesize big claims, and your skeptical probings underneath the surfaces of our texts. Your occasional TVTropes-style analysis was also quite helpful in contributing a more formalist analysis of the way plots and characters are constructed out of conventions. I hope you will continue your reĔections on the meanings and agendas underneath all these đctions we consume for fun—and I wish you all the best for the new year and beyond."

MY TVTROPES STYLE ANALYSIS GUYS. I guess all the hours of my life that site has sucked up were worth something after all. (And as a side note, I do make a point of reading the tvtropes page for whatever book we're reading in class after I finish it, because it's usually a) a good way to start structuring thematic arguments, b) a good way to pick up plot details I was too dense to notice on my own and c) really fun.)

I guess I must have really overdone it during the last two weeks of school, because I'm just starting to feel like a normal human being again; this is probably the first day since I got back that I haven't been ready to go to bed by 6pm. And even though my family's trying to give me a break, it still feels like there's a lot going on already - visiting my grandpa at the rehab center (he's doing well, and looking better than I expected, but still pretty frail), lunch out with my mom and various relations, visiting with my grandma, an aborted attempt at going to a hockey game with my dad and the girlfriend. Tomorrow my aunt and I are going to get a Christmas tree. And I'm still in the middle of making arrangements for a couple of other meet-ups of greater or lesser importance. So much for relaxing, huh?

I'm still on the Great Adolescent Nostalgia Kick, but I've now moved on temporarily from Naruto to Yu Yu Hakusho. I think I'm regressing. I'd forgotten how utterly ridiculous this show is in every possible way. Junior high thugs with greaser hair? Check. Tournament arcs that go on for episodes at a time without anyone finishing a fight? Check. Characters who shout each other's names dramatically several dozen times in every scene? Check. The Power of Friendship and Love being enough to overcome all odds and physical limitations? SO MUCH CHECK.

And yet I love it, like, really a lot. I guess I'm just a sucker for a good shonen series.

Last night I dreamed that I had spent all week watching a new anime series, and then, when I tried to pimp it out to a friend, I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of it, and was resorted to desperate flailing and increasingly unhelpful descriptions to try to get her to figure out what it was called.

As far as I can remember through the dream logic, the series was like a cross between Loveless and Crimson Spell, with all the creepy shota vibes of the first and the demon sex magic of the second; the (approximately teen-age) main character steals his dead brother's spell book, uses it to summon a demon, and ends up demon-marked and debauched by a hot denizen of hell. The only scene I remember clearly, the demon dude holds his magic hand mirror in front of his crotch and makes the main character get on his knees and kiss it.

Now that I'm actually awake, I'm kind of sad that this show doesn't really exist. I would totally watch the hell out of it.

So I've been very seriously lurking ever since I came back from San Francisco with the plague. I don't usually get this sick just from colds! I'm kinda sorta starting to feel better (except for the headache and the coughing like I'm in the end stages of consumption) but damn. I've barely been to class all week - I went to linguistics on Mon and NaNo yesterday, work training Mon night, and I made sure to turn in my kanji homework, but that's all. Aprt of it is not feeling up to class, and part of it is not feeling up to /getting/ to class; a 15 minute walk seems like a bit much when a shower knocks me out. So yeah, I've been seeing a lot of my room and my bed this week. DX

Things What I Have Done Instead Of Going To Class:

read every sporking and mockery of the Twilight series I can - it's like watching a train wreck, I swear to god. I know the books are horrendous drivel, but I can't...look...away...the sprakly vampires! The bad teenage romance angst! The complete failure of anything resembling a logical plot! The abuse of the word chagrin! The emergency c-section of mutant vampire hybrid baby by teeth! (Remember kids: Twilight means never having to say you're kidding)

read about famous horrific serial killers - It's a hobby, okay? I think I needed to look up the West Memphis 3 for some reason and things escalated from there. Yeah.

watched Antique Bakery, aka the anime about gay pastry chefs - mere words cannot describe how cracktastically wonderful this series is, but here's a brief summary for you.

Tachibana is the wealthy ex-businessman who opens a bakery (mostly to meet chicks). He has Angst because of being kidnapped once when he was a small child and being fed cake (I DON'T KNOW OKAY).

Ono is his pastry baker. They knew each other in high school, when Ono came out to him and Tachibana violently rejected his feelings. Ono contemplated suicide but instead became a gay Don Juan, and has been fired from every job he's had because his male co-workers inevitably fall in love with him.

Kanda is /adorable/. He used to be a world-class boxer, but he injured his eyes, and had to give up boxing or go blind. He shows up at the bakery to work as a counter boy, but convinces Ono to let him be his apprentice.because he really likes cake.

Chikage is Tachibana's house-boy. They grew up together, because his family works for Tachibana's. He is being trained to be a waiter, but he's kind of very inept. At everything. He is totally in love with Ono. It's terribly awkward and sweet.

Put them all in a small bakery-like space and allow hijinks to ensue. It's fantastic!

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Placido Domingo - Der Trunkene im Fruhling

...that even if only a dozen fics have ever been written in a fandom, at least one of them will be slash. In fact, one could say that one does not deserve to even be called a proper fandom until a) someone has written lemon for it, b) someone has slashed it, and c) someone has made an amv with the song "What Hurts The Most", "My Immortal", or "Listen To Your Heart".

I note this because I went to anime club today. Which was weird in that I was the /only/ girl and probably the only person under 25 (this wasn't really a meeting but an extra screening for people who couldn't go on Tuesday, though, so I reserve judgment). Aside from that awkwardness, it was cool though, and the anime was great - really good stuff I probably wouldn't have watched on my own, including:

1) Gurren Lagaan - this was bad in a sort of good way, meaning it's silly, ludicrous, and absurdly over-the-top, but also kind of fun, if you're into totally cracktastic mecha anime. Lots of strange looking robots and weird drill things. According to the guys who seemed to be running things, it doesn't even begin to make sense until the 4th episode.

Slash Rating: 7 - there's a lot of (male) fanservice in the form of T&A of the female character; on the other hand, there's a lot of suggestive (to me) dialogue, and Kamina, one of the main guys, never wears a shirt and seems overly fond of touching Simon, the main character. He's totally trying to get into his pants.

Best line of dialogue (Kamina to Simon): "You will penetrate the heavens with your drill!" Riiiiight.

2) Nomade Cantabile: I absolutely recommend this one to any and everyone. The plot's a relatively tame romance: uptight perfectionistic asshole piano student meets free-spirited piano student, much character development and gradually mushy feelings occur. What makes it worth watching - the art is spectacular, gorgeous, fabulous, the characters are interesting so far and really well developed, the female lead is a complete and utter whack job in an endearing way, and the whole thing just has this kind of dreamy, trippy, surreal feel to it that I really got into.

Slash Rating: 3 - it's a pretty straight up het romance, obviously, so very little slash, especially as for once I can really see the het pairing working out well. On the other hand, one of the male characters, Mine, totally has this whole "I'm madly in love with you but I can't have you so I'll just subvert my homosexual manlove feelings into being protective of your wannabe girlfriend/help her seduce you" thing for Chiaki, the main male character. Also, apparently later a drag queen falls in love with Chiaki. Yay!

3) Black Lagoon - wow, this was violent. I mean really, seriously, insanely violent, as in an entire bar full of hookers and gamblers got shot up and everyone graphically died. And then they shot a helicopter out of the air with a torpedo. A /torpedo/. So, yeah, violent. However, it was also pretty good, and I did like it a lot. Basically, this salaryman gets kidnapped by a small mercenary gang and then ends up joining them, and the rest of the series, as far as I can tell, is them doing jobs and blowing things up. I can live with that. Rokuro/Rock, the salaryman, is made of adorable naivete, and it was pretty funny in the first/second episode - at first he's all freaking out and "I don't know what to do, just take me home, I can't believe this is happening to me" and then he goes to sleep and when he wakes up, he's some kind of mad tactical genius guy. The idea of shooting the helicopter with the rocket-launcher? All his.

Slash Rating: 6 - Okay, Rock is so incredibly cute and innocent I want to make him uke with every guy in the show, and I see this as totally plausible. Dutch (the mercenary leader) was definitely giving him /looks/, esp when he was asleep and all cute, and Benny seems like a cool guy who'd be willing to try anything once. It's not overtly there, but slash is a distinct possibility.

So there you have it, my rambling and irrelevent opinions of three shows, based on having seen all of 2 episodes of each. Still, enjoy.

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Sitting In The Dark