This will now be a sort-of combination of my thoughts regarding episodes 10-11. I’m gonna make this short and sweet, so I can move on to the rest of my backlogs~

Unlike the previous episodes, the pacing of the show is speeding up quite a bit. We see a coming storm in the relationship of Yuumi and Kouichi, which might or might not end the romance between the two. More episodes are necessary to see what direction they’re taking for this couple. I was quite surprised that they’d be presenting this plot device this early, since it’s supposedly the last hurdle in their relationship (based on the novel, and perhaps the game as well), which will then lead to a dramatic and dreamy ending~

Gone were the days when I simply ignored news about Wii games. So here I am, excited about the upcoming Nodame Cantabile game coming out for the Wii on December 27! Yeah I know, I’m late for the news. But hey, I just got my Wii last last week! :p

At first I thought the game was simply about conducting, and I can already imagine how it’s going to be done with the Wii-mote. To my surprise, you can also get to “play” all the other instruments in the orchestra: piano, oboe, timpani, clarinet, violin, flute, and cello! It’ll require some imagination, as you only have the wii-mote and the nunchuck to fiddle the instruments with, and I think you’ll be mistaken as a crazy person once other people see you so engrossed with playing the “violin” for example It’s gonna be so much fun playing this with a bunch of other Wii-mates, where you’ll all be immersed into the world of the orchestra~

(Obviously, I’m uber delayed for this Christmas Countdown… but oh well, better late than never! >3)

Since I wasn’t able to mention much about the Japan trip I had last July, I guess this is but the time to look back and share more about my lucky Fukuoka escapade~ The only thing I seem to have shared about it is… the pile of loot I bought amidst the Hare-Raising Storm, in this post. My entire trip was far more exciting than that, filled with random interesting sightings and discoveries~

The “mystery” bunny

First, look at this bunny over here. Guess what its true identity is…

First, some alibis regarding the lack of blog updates. So last week was the office Christmas rush, busy with preparations for our [formal] company Christmas party held last December 15. But since the people in the office are such fun-loving people, the party didn’t stop at that. We had yet another party just this Friday,　 an “in house” Christmas party this time, loaded with fun-filled activities—a white elephant gift exchange, karaoke, Pictionary and charades tournament, and most importantly… a Wii-party!!

Throughout the week, I spent most of my free time at home playing, so Wii could get to know each other better. It’s even more fun (and distracting?) when you get to know the Wii-mates in the office, who suddenly graced your little baby with a lot of games~

In other words, the Wii (and of course my lack of self-control) is to blame for the MIA status of the blog in the span of a few days, causing me more backlogs orz. I think the Christmas Countdown will now be a countdown to the New Year’s, unless I manage to pull off two or three posts a day in the coming days~

Enough introductions and onto Shugo Chara episode 11 (aka the episode last week):

This episode is loads fun~ :3 This has got to be the episode which remained most true to the chapter it was based on, unlike the other ones which were either complete fillers, or drastically changed. The original story was adapted for the winter holiday season, so in lieu of the summer beach elements, we see skiing, ice sculptures, and multi-layered clothing (which might have disappointed fans who were looking for more skin.). We just didn’t get to see this one brief moment with Amu remembering Ikuto’s dumpty key, because she still hasn’t seen it yet.

I know Ouran dates back 2006, but oh well =P

Ouran is one of the most successful shoujo manga adaptations to date, and one of the few series out there whose anime outweighs its original manga counterpart. Truth be told, I didn’t fully enjoy the Ouran Koukou Host Club manga, so I was really wondering what all the hype was about. Until, the anime came along which I immediately fell in love with.

Ouran holds a special place in my heart, for a couple more reasons, best described by this quote from Boys Be, with the “cherry blossom (桜)” as “Ouran(桜蘭)” in my case :3

“Cherry blossoms, the noble flower, witness to many an encounter over time. Cherry blossoms, the vain flower, have watched many a farewell. And again this year they bloom to watch over a lot of faint but painful feelings in the season of beginnings called spring.”

The experience I had may not be as dramatic, but similar nonetheless.

Fangirl post alert!

In the recent conversations me and Seleria had about the Christmas Countdown, the idea of a Christmas wishlist popped into the hamster’s mind. Wishlist with either, trademark stuffs in various series we’d like to have (like Konata’s choco-coronet), or guys or girls we’d love to spend Christmas with. Given that, do expect that there might be some of this wishlist items coming out of the 12 days of Christmas posts, like right now

Being a Corda fan, I immediately thought of Tsuchiura and Tsukimori, in the list of guys I’d want to spend Christmas with. But after much thought, I settled on Tsuchiura, who I’ve been proclaiming as the BF material amongst the Corda guys. Anyone disagrees? =P

Tsunde-Len is cute when he gets all dere-dere, but in a real-life perspective, I don’t think I’ll be able to stand someone as obnoxious as him. Attraction to real-life tsunderes will greatly depend on whether you can trigger the dere factor in them. Otherwise, seeing all tsuntsun is so not cute.

So there, Hino can have Len all to herself~

I would’ve fangirled over the Corda series yet again in this retrospective post, but I think I already did that here :3 Instead, I bring you do this mini analysis on the Tsu-boys (tsu is actually ‘two’ in japanese / engrish) of Corda~

(Ok… I was planning something else for this day, but I just thought this would be more appropriate for the recent turn of events in the blogosphere)

Just for the record, I joined the ABC not because a Hitler forced me to. I am fairly new to the AB channel, so I don’t have the same impression and antagonism as other people towards Owen, and even if others find him a jerk, his efforts for wanting to forge this blogging community, is admirable nonetheless. Do note that the ABC is not under dictatorial leadership; basically everyone in the group can be leaders, as with the case of CCYoshi who spearheaded the idea of the “12 Days of Christmas” project.

I consider myself a neophyte in the blogosphere, and despite blogging for almost a year now, I felt I was distant from the rest of the bloggers. During my first few months in blogging, the people I’ve interacted with are mostly people from the same forums I actively participate in, my fellow fangirl and co-blogger Seleria, and only a measly number of other bloggers. Other than that, I’m all passive and too engrossed in my own blog to actively hop step jump! to other blogs lol.

Still, there’s that desire to become part of the anime blogging community, in the truest sense of the word. And it’s not until recently that I actually felt I belong to one. I owe much of that to joining the AB channel, which allowed me to interact with other bloggers and the rest of the people in the channel, beyond the confinement of the blog. The reason why I joined the ABC is in line with this same desire to become closer to the entire community, as it will prompt me to participate in ongoing discussions, rather than stay passive (and lonely lol). My lazy ass really needs some whipping, so that I’ll interact with other blogs more frequently.

Ok, I’m gonna do a quickie post for this one, as I’m feeling the Christmas rush in the office, with the preparations we’re doing for our Christmas party tomorrow! I’m not gonna attend the said party for several reasons, but I’m actively partipating in some other way, preparing the props and the presentation for our little contest, editing photos for our memorabilia, etc. So with that, I don’t really think I have much creative juices brimming in me right now. Nevertheless, I don’t want to be late in the bandwagon of the Countdown to Christmas, so here goes~

EDIT (in sane mode, a day after posting this):

Obviously, I was really groggy when I posted this, that I wasn’t even able to give a proper introduction to this Christmas Countdown / “12 Days of Christmas” feature we have. This is a joint project of the ABC, a brainchild of CCYoshi. Together with other participants, JRoxas, CCYoshi, 0rion, Owen S, Quinn, Xerox, Michael Huang, DS, Nekoro, Martin, Nekoron, and CalAggie, we’re gonna do a series of retrospective posts, reflecting on whatever stuffs in 2007—manga, anime, games, the blogosphere in general, or even our own [otaku] lives for that matter.

(I was supposed to post this hours ago, when this event was supposedly active, but oh well XD)

Whee~ a present from Kira~

As I write this post, it’s still… the 13th of December, that special day I came out of my burrow and yelled out “Hello World!” like the very first program we are made to do in programming language tutorials Simply put, it’s my birthday. I was actually planning to post something else, but I figured I won’t be able to finish it till the next few days, so I went on a scanning spree instead, to make a random blog post with picture spam

Oh, and I’d like to thank Maestro for moving our site to the new AB server. Goodbye downtimes~! Maestro might not be aware of it, but he just gave me a birthday present~ :p

…I get a Wii instead! w00t?