“O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”

This phrase best sums up the current situation of True Tears, with its complicated characters and relationships. The more I watch it, the more I feel as if my [hated] melodrama animes, particularly Marmalade Boy (the half brother and sister angle, past issues between their parents), Kimagure Orange Road (the unbreakable triangle loop), and Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (pimping someone else for the one you like; not fighting for the love you want), are coming back to haunt me.

The plot devices and the schema of relationships in True Tears seem all familiar, but for some reason it still proves to be a refreshing watch. Perhaps it’s the awesome visuals, which accentuates all the subtleties in each of the character’s actions and emotions. Or the fact that it’s only 13-episodes long, which means that it won’t beat around the bush unlike the aforementioned animes, and resolve things rather quickly (and hopefully, effectively).

So what does the web of deceit look like now? JRoxas provided a graphical view of this entangled relationships in the show, and just to expound on this further…

Prepare for cheesiness and emoness!

Weeks after I watched Tokyo Marble Chocolate, I still wondered why I loved it so much. Despite having said my thoughts on the OAV in my review, I can’t help but think there’s got to be a deeper reason why it pierced through the depths of my heart. I wasn’t able to give this much thought, until Owen brought about the idea of a Personal TMC post for the ABC Valentine’s special, as we reflect on the show and how it relates to our personal lives.

It didn’t take me long to find out the answer to this from my TMC-loving heart. Let’s just say I was able to relate to both Yuudai and Chizuru, the stars of the show. Surprising as it may seem, I found myself being in both ends of the spectrum, though not in a romantic relationship setting. I’m a romance n00b like Eriko after all, though not as eccentric and lacking in common sense.

This is what happens when you get so many ideas for posts. You end up finishing nothing. Or at least, it takes you days and weeks to finish at least one of the posts, due to the lack of focus. On top of that, if you get sidetracked by a spur-of-the-moment excitement / fangirling, you end up finishing another post instead. *points to self, and this post .___.*

I happened to read the 2nd spinoff manga chapter of Honey and Clover just yesterday, and thought that it might be a good idea to share about this sweet little chapter. It’s been more than a year since the first spin-off story was released. That story focused mainly on the marriage of Yamada’s brother, and just featured this little scene Nomiya’s heroic deed of eating and even praising Yamada’s horrendous Akane-esque cooking. This time around, Umino Chika allowed us to see more of Yamada and Nomiya’s relationship :3

Love and hate go hand in hand…

While Impz has enumerated the pros and cons of collaborative blogging, I think there’s one more con that need to be added to this list (something which most of us already know by now), especially since THAT is facing it right at this moment.
A counter-argument for the first [...]

kamosu zo~!

The Moyashimon Magnet Gashapon toys were unleashed last December 14, 2007 for world かもす domination. The entire Japan (or at least those who has been luckily infected by these bacteria) went OPERATION: BACTER(i)ADICATION™, and in less than 3 days, most shops in Japan has been purified. The lucky owners of these bacteria magnets must be rejoicing by now, especially those who took advantage of its profitability. With these gashapon toys sold out in almost all stores in Japan (I’m not sure if there are still other shops where they’re available), the only way to get them now would be online. And boy has its market value INCREASED. From its original 300yen a piece, there are now shops which sell them for 3x and even 6x as much!

A hamster once told me that I remind her of Kona-chan’s otakuness.

Ok, it’s been weeks since I started writing this post, and now it’s finally out of my “queue of planned posts” list. By now, other bloggers are reminiscing their blogging nostalgia, and I’m reminiscing something else lol.

Let’s begin this post with a question, shall we? (to those who have been anime fans ever since the 90s…) Do you remember the time when there was no other way to watch animes but through local or cable television, betamax, VHS, or laser discs? Way back the dial-up age when you used the internet primarily for surfing, and/or communicating with fellow fans through mailing lists and forums?

I’ve been thinking about these good ol days, the time of the 90s which I’d call the analog otaku days. Hinano’s post about the absence of fansites weeks back made those memories even more vivid, compared to when I was first writing this post. Allow me to share some tidbits about my “analog otaku life” experiences, specifically before the dawn of the broadband internet…