Relax and unwind, do not set any expectations. Allow yourself to be immersed into the show, and appreciate the love it brings~
Watch the guy part first, which I felt to have better transition despite the missing girl’s story part in between. And, I think it’d be better for you to see the girl as [...]

Title: Tokyo Marble Chocolate (東京マーブルチョコレート)
Scrumptious Meter: 4.0 (a heartful delight, leaving you all warm and fuzzy~) [-1 due to something lacking in the development of Chizuru x Yuudai relationship]
Length: 2 OAV episodes, ~28 minutes each

So the fanboys have spoken, now it’s time for a rabid fangirl to speak for this show =D

This is gonna be EPIC, so I hope I won’t bore you to tears, and convince you to watch this show instead. Please bear with me and my review, as this is the first time I actually did something like this. The show just compelled me to, and put the words into my mouth. =3

There are times when all it takes to save a relationship and get it back on track, is one little mishap, an accidental mix-up, which turns out to be nothing else but a blessing in disguise. With fates entwined, the result is the enchanting romance tale of Tokyo Marble Chocolate, a 2-part OAV by Production I.G., released last December.

While I was writing up my post for episode 15, my excitement was sort of overtaken by Tokyo Marble Chocolate, leaving me screaming “GO WATCH THAT OAV, LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!!! IT’S SOOO GOOOD!!! Makes you all fluffy and warm inside =3″ after watching it the other day. By the time I continued writing, episode 16 has aired, so I decided to do a combination post instead. And man… now I’m all KimiKiss emo again ;____; I really have to watch TMC again, and be filled with romance fluff happiness >_<;;

Both episode 15 and 16, are such heart-wrenching episodes, especially from the perspective of a now distraught fan who can't decide between the two girls in the triangles *points to self*. Whilst True Tears is just starting to flesh out, episode 16 of KimiKiss is like the embodiment of "true tears" for me, the start of even more tear-jerker episodes (in a bittersweet way) from what I can see. The more this series turns into an exciting brawl, the harder it is to accept that one girl in the two triangles will end up having the short end of the stick, especially now that I see all the girls on almost equal 好感度パラメータ (likeability / romance factor), from a dating-sim gamer POV. Eriko blew me away with this episode, growing on me exponentially.

Allow me to interrupt our normal programming as if there was such a thing to begin with? :p and bring you this random image post.

I stumbled upon these while I was searching for the csubbed True Tears episode 4, and found them to be really lovely pics~ just beautiful

I love the tagline of this series, “People become stronger when they find someone they ought to protect”. rawr, so GAR

Not too long ago, I pointed out Kurenai as one of the animes I’m looking forward to in the Spring Lineup. Yes, I’m looking that far ahead. Although I don’t have the actual novel in my hands, I managed to find it *cough* somewhere else *cough* It took me weeks of perseverance, to keep me from buying the novels on impulse. I thought hard, wondering if it’ll be worth my time and money, considering the pile of unread mangas and novels (*cough* Saiunkoku *cough*) I have. I browsed through the novels again, supposedly for dispelling my excitement (the want-to-buy-it kind of excitement) for it, only to end up failing to resist it more orz.

It’s been more than a week since fellow chefs left this bunny for Japan, to work and be merry. Despite how hard it is to be left ronery, I had no choice but to accept this fate. Bunnies die if they become too lonely, they say (*gasp* :O), so before I get consumed by my solitude, I decided to pay my Bunny Family a visit, amidst the ongoing heated “debate” in the blogosphere, which is now making my head ache @_@ Let’s just all be happy, yay! \o/

So… is the design for these rabbit ears intended to point out that bunnies are ‘horny’? o__O

Truth be told, I got separated from my pack of furry bunny friends before, and if not for some coverage about my ancestors, as well as the power of ChSubs™, I wouldn’t have known that they are still alive and well~ working hard, sweaty, and furry as ever.

Despite having said much about Mao and Yuumi’s relationship with Kouichi in my last post, I’m actually more excited for the love triangle involving our carrot-type guinea pig soccer guy Kazuki. I owe much of this to my Asuka bias, especially with a love like hers that’s so ideal and cute that it makes me all the more love her character. Asuka certainly stood out in this episode, which makes me a happy fangirl of course. Go go Asuka~!! o(^^o)(o^^)o Allow me to point out several things as to why I think Asuka and Kazuki should end up together, at least not until I find another development in Eriko which I’ll be delving on later in this post.

This is going to be Asuka-fangirl-centric (I feel like Nana or other Asuka fans now lol)

If you will notice, I changed the title of this post, spiced it up a bit, instead of the boring monotonic version I’ve been using for the past KimiKiss episodes. For one, I think this’ll spark up more readership, an initial indicator that I am not merely blogging a descriptive episodic post on the series, to separate myself from the rest of the people doing mass-market episodic blogging, as bateszi puts it.

A little bit of overall thoughts on KimiKiss thus far…

I haven’t watched the other romance offerings of the fall season to proclaim KimiKiss to be the most superior of them, but it is undeniably one of the best. KimiKiss started out as nothing else but a simple tale of high school romance, which initially attracted viewers with its non-conformance to typical harem romance stereotypes. Having read the manga and the novel beforehand, I was able to appreciate much of the changes made to the show, with its additional characters, and “plot” changes. Described as a vanilla show by most people, with the lack of fanservice or moe spice we usually see, it managed to stand out despite its simplicity. We’re already halfway through the series and yet we’re still at the edge of our seats, wondering who will end up with whom as the series draws to a close. “Unpredictably predictable”, as CCYoshi puts it, is but apt to describe this.

This unpredictability is one of the aspects which compelled me to analyze the relationships in KimiKiss, with the coming of each episode. It’s much to my surprise that I never seem to run out of things to say for this series, for the characters and the relationships involved. To those who have joined me in this ride, you can see how my perceptions of the characters have changed as the series went on, how Mao has especially grown on me despite my initial apprehension for her. I think I also owe much of that to Mike of Anime Diet, with his post in defense of Mao. With Owen’s response to my previous post in defense of Eriko on the other hand, I realized how I became too logical in analyzing her development, as I confined myself in this sandbox of “reality” which limited by understanding and open-mindedness.

In all this, I found all the characters of KimiKiss endearing, real as they are portrayed to be. Despite my biases for certain characters and couples I’m rooting for, I can honestly say that I’ll be happy with whatever outcome the series will have. Though of course biases will still be present, if that’s not evident enough in my “shipping”.

KimiKiss have already given me much; not necessarily life-changing, but thought-provoking ideas and circumstances which allowed me to grow as a person. I want to broaden my perspectives, which is why I want to stand by this show until the end. It’s also for this same reason that I would all the more appreciate comments from my readers, a reality-check of some sort, to see whether people agree or disagree with whatever I’m posting here.

The initial title I had for this post is “KimiKiss Episode 14 - "Don’t Promise Me Forever…"”, and I wonder what difference this change in the post title made caused. Would you have most likely ignored this post with that title? I’m just curious…

Before you go and respond to this post, do note that I have yet to include my thoughts on episode 15 in this post. Also, for now, this post has no eyecandies, and I wonder if that affects your willingness to read my usual “tl;dr” posts.

Shugo Chara DS Game

As I am still in the process of finishing my thoughts and babbling on KimiKiss episode 14 (gawd I think too much x__x), I’m gonna take a short break and plug about this COOL and SPICY news first.

Given the popularity of Shugo Chara in Japan (and in all other countries across the globe, for that matter), it is of no surprise that we’ll finally be seeing a Shugo Chara game for the DS, this coming March 13, 2008. I’ve already mentioned about this possibility, way back November, and I think my “wish” was more or less, fulfilled. Quoting what I said, in my Shugo Chara Hype post:

“Aside from these novelty items, I can already see a Shugo Chara console game coming out sometime soon from Konami, hopefully an RPG-ish otome game =P”

Last season, I initially planned to cook-up a comprehensive first impressions post on the fall animes I watched, but before I even got a glimpse of most of them, I already found myself joining the bandwagon of blogging Shugo Chara, KimiKiss, My Condolences Ninomiya-kun, and Suteki Tantei Labyrinth. In the end, my originally intended post never materialized. I dropped one show after another as time went by, leaving only KimiKiss (and the Shugo Chara manga, if that counts) in my current blogging schedule. I lost the passion and drive to blog Saiunkoku and Emily along the way as well, and up until now I’m still trying to rekindle that flame =__=

This time around, I decided to take it slow, to delight in what the Winter ‘08 animes has to offer, before deciding on which shows to blog. Despite how several shows piqued my interest, namely True Tears, Persona, Porfy no Nagai Tabi, Shigofumi, Spice and Wolf, Hatenkou Yuugi, Hakaba Kitarou and KimiAru, I can’t seem to bring myself to write about these shows. These animes struck a chord with me, but somehow, it wasn’t enough inspiration for a write-up (the KimiAru deep frying I did isn’t really a proper write-up, but just a random “lol”).

Winter’s Block is making me feel like a sad girl in the snow. It’s not you, winter animes, it’s me.

I’ve never been a good writer. If there’s one thing that blogging has really taught me, it’s that I should not have taken reading [English books] and writing for granted, during the “formative years” of my life. Sorry, mom, I now realize how foolish I am for not listening to your advice. But that’s not the point. The thing is, with the lack of ability to articulately express myself, especially for shows I can’t [fully] get into, I am not able to churn out a “worthwhile” post. With this, I come to the conclusion that the problem lies with me and my current Winter’s Block. The most plausible and convenient reason I can think of behind this phenomenon is that, I left my heart somewhere else, in the season of Spring~ yes that’s right. Deliberately or not, I found myself not wanting to become attached to the Winter shows, in light of what is to come in the next season. I feel like singing, “O Come All Ye Spring 2008 Animes” now, actually

My Newtype magazines just made this worse, as it allowed me to do some sort of “time leap”, and I became excited for what Spring ‘08 has to offer instead. I guess this also explains why I wasn’t able to cook up a Winter 2008 Anime “Menu” / Season Preview? Though I think I owe much of that to laziness, procrastination, and loneliness (bunnies need company to be able to GIVE IT ALL THEY’VE GOT, after all)
Having known the roots of my Winter’s Block, I obviously cannot go about proclaiming how the Winter season of animes suck. I’ve already lost the “right” to proclaim that with what I’ve mentioned thus far. If you’re looking for a guide for the Winter season of shows, I’m sorry to say that I cannot be a hermit bunny at this state of hibernation. And besides, there are other blogs out there which are more qualified for that, IMO. So instead of forcing myself to post about the current shows [halfheartedly], I’ll just stick to what I’ve already been doing and continue to look at what lies ahead, while not losing focus of the present (aka watching Winter shows, and blogging what I’m supposed to). Allow me then to guide you into the world of Spring! Wai~ So yeah, all this lengthy introduction is just to tell you guys, that I’ll be providing “Snapshots of Spring 2008″ in the coming months, as I scan pages from Newtype / Animedia, for the greater good. ^^;;;

Enjoy the pics~! Let’s all be happy and look forward to Spring! =3