Synopsis: Doumeki bears a spider’s grudge after destroying a web that Watanuki got caught into.

Ah, it has been a while since I last set foot here. The scrumptious anime blog has started to become usagijen’s realm in the other bloggers’ absence. Well, I have been terribly busy at work, having no time to watch anime, much less blog them. In that busy-ness, at least I got to go to Japan, the motherlode of all that is anime and manga. Got to stay there for almost three months too and when I left, it was spring already. Time flies fast, doesn’t it?

And speaking of spring, the second season of xxxHOLiC Kei is one anime that I have been eagerly anticipating. xxxHOLiC is one of my favorite anime and I find Watanuki’s antics amusing. And then there’s the sultry Yuuko Ichihara who makes granting wishes here business. One thing I like about xxxHOLiC is its supernatural theme, drawing upon Japanese folklore and CLAMP’s imagination. The black Mokona is simply icing on the cake.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Interest level: dwindling……. =.=;
We have another murder case, most of whose roots, background, etc are basically f*cked up (literally and figuratively). They wasted a LOT of time throughout the duration of these two episodes (similar to the President’s case in episode 2-3), yet in the end, they didn’t really show what I wanted… like what really motivated the killer to do all those murders in the first place!! =.=;

Popularity: 1% [?]

Awesome as ever! Now to give credit where it’s due. All this raburabu Kotoko x Naoki we see now is all thanks to… Irie-mama~! the embodiment of the perfect mother-in-law <3 Well what else can I say, this series remains lightheartedly fun and amusing~! Props to both Kotoko and Naoki too for their wacky love-hate antics.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Plot thickens~ and bishies increase again!
By now, I’ve realized that I’m watching this for the lulz, I find the cheesy lines ridiculous, but it still makes the fangirl in me giggle lol.

Now the dilemma, should I write a post poking fun at this, or should I make a SRS BSNS post and really focus on its serious positive aspects, like hashihime. hmm~

Popularity: 1% [?]

…am I still watching Kure-nai? o.o So it became Kurenai the Musical~ cliche as that sounds now. I just hope this won’t ruin the overall pacing of the series. Great filler, nonetheless~!

Popularity: 1% [?]

FACE MY WRATHH!

I never really intended to rant but sigh…

I was randomly checking my animesuki forum profile today when I noticed that I was given a negative reputation for my comment regarding episode 4 (and also episodes 1-3 if that person reacted to my deep-frying post), for praising the anime for the changes it made to the novel. It was way back April, but I just noticed it now. He/she gave this justification for deeming my post as realll baddd: “censorship is bad. approving it is even worse.” What’s this, have I lost all my freedom to choose which of the anime and novel I prefer now? Mind you, I wasn’t outright bashing the novel, I was actually showing both sides, with a strong leaning towards the anime. And what do you know, I’ve watched till episode 6, noticed bits of the novel that was changed or wasn’t included, and I thought how nice it would be if they included that (the scene where Murasaki got hurt, the elaborate details about Shinkurou’s past, etc)! ARGGHH. T___T

I couldn’t care less about the reputation stuffs, really, but I do know for a fact that I do not deserve this negative reputation. It’s not like I b*tched, like “Down with the Kure-nai novel!! you filthy book filled with pedo loli vibesss!!!!” Ok, so you (whoever you are) disapprove the censorship in the anime. Is it because you favor the additional innuendos in the novel, among others? Whatever your reasons are for preferring the novel, it’s your opinion, and I respect that. Respect mine too. Am I not a free citizen entitled to my own opinion? You’re like censoring my opinion too, with what you did.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I don’t expect anyone else to be excited about this except old-school animu fans, but anyways.

I saw this news in akiba-station of the upcoming JDrama adaptation of the classic shoujo manga/anime Here is Greenwood, which, according to my antique precious little diary, was something I watched way back year 2000! High school years, VHS times and all that age of antiquity. Amazingly enough, despite having watched this 6-episode OAV only once, the impact it had on my still immature-animu-fan self back then is evident in how I could remember much of its details — the hijinx inside the Greenwood dormitory, the TRAP of the show, and the sweet romance between a tsundere girl and a tsundere guy which brought me to tears despite not understanding how the girl got to realize who she loves orz. It had this poignancy which made it really memorable, and throughout these years I had this lingering thought of rewatching the show. The news of this upcoming live action series reawakened those thoughts, made it all vivid again, and perhaps this time around, I’ll finally be able to get my lazy butt to watch it, so I can finally understand it once and for all, demmit!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Thanks to my recent enlightenment on Kaiba and some inspiration from the great coverage it’s getting from the blogosphere, I finally decided to hop on the Kaiba-ndwagon~ :3 Lengthy introduction ahead!

Kaiba easily stood out among the Spring animes for the simplicity and uniqueness of its visuals, and utter complexity of its storyline. This served as an open invitation for the audience to swim through its depths, with some people ending up with a moment of epiphany, and some disgruntled ones who drowned in despair, unable to grasp the seemingly incoherent ideas in the show as well as the hype behind it.　There’s also a bunch of pretentious ones who convinced themselves to have understood the show even if they didn’t, the category which I belonged to weeks before I wrote this post. It’s not that only a privileged few can understand Kaiba; everyone can actually, so long as they’re willing enough to plunge into this world and explore it to its very depths, and become one of the enlightened ones.

Popularity: 3% [?]

So it seems that some of the great anime blogging sempais are making their comeback, thanks to the almighty OS who woke them from their slumber. While those who have long been in the blogging scene and witnessed their legacy are going “Natsukashii~“, we n00bs could simply bow down in awe of them m(_ _)m. And the great(est) thing about this is that, 3 of these sempais are girls (Newt, and *ahem* Ate Ten and Ate Reika? :P). Hurray for more females in the blogosphere! ;___;

Also, with the recent rise of itsubun into this sausage-fest blogosphere comes this plan of female blog-o-domination! Ok, it’s not really as diabolical as it sounds. We’re basically planning to have an all-girls round-robin, where we vote or choose for a particular topic or issue we want to discuss, everyone in the gang (or the interested members, at least) writes a post on it, linkwhore each other, and the result is this EPIC girl-power-filled discussion. We have several potential topics in mind atm, but I’m not disclosing them here or it’ll ruin the surprise factor

Popularity: 7% [?]

Apparently, what inspired Hiro Arikawa to write Toshokan Sensou is the Statement of Intellectual Freedom in Libraries of the JLA (Japan Library Association), written on a plaque inside the library she and her husband visited. This was mentioned in her postscript in volume 1, but I really didn’t understand it until today, when I checked out the spunky updated Toshokan Sensou article on Wikipedia. I fail as a TS fan! zetsuboushitaaa!

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read this Intellectual Freedom Statement… it’s the exact Library Liberation Act of the novel — the four articles, expounded upon point by point. I never thought it exists in real life O.O My respect for libraries just escalated to a thousandfold after this. I guess this means that the people mocking Library War for its “ridiculous” premise of fighting for books are also mocking this Library Bill of Rights (the US has one too) in the process. tsk.

Popularity: 5% [?]