Thanks to my melancholic mood for the last couple of days, I came up with a list of my ‘10 Favorite Anime Music Blues Chasers’, also in response to adaywithoutme’s ‘Anime Music to Listen to When Depressed’. What better way to fight melancholy but drown yourself in music, right?
I rarely talk about music in this [...]

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Lately I�ve been wondering, is Skip Beat really that awesome? Bloggers might not have given it much attention, but it�s certainly getting the spotlight elsewhere, be it in forums, chat rooms, or yahoo groups, with fans raving about it, praising it to the high heavens as though it�s a total Obra Maestra. But is it really? Is it not just another overrated series, probably the shoujo counterpart of long-running mainstream shounen series? For once, I decided to take off my rose-tinted glasses and look at Skip Beat from a totally unbiased point of view.

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One thing people will find most noteworthy about Skip Beat is the goddess heroine Kyoko and her versatility as a character. Without doubt, Kyoko has got to be the most expressive character you�ll ever see in the manga/anime world, if the above screencaps don�t serve enough proof of that. Opinions regarding Skip Beat�s (and Kyoko�s) awesomeness or depth might differ from person to person (I know for a fact that my ability to relate with Skip Beat is far beyond normal), but this is one thing we can all agree with.

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The end of Skip Beat, that is, and the above pic captures exactly how I feel right at this moment. I neglected watching Skip Beat a few months back, and now that I almost caught up… it’s nearing its end. NOooOOoOooo!!!! The Dark Moon is not over yet! And I want to see Ren’s awesome dad in full animated glory! And and… so much more!! I don’t want it to end yet TT____TT Where’s my season 2?? Where’s my goddamn rumored 41 eps?! This is almost like how I felt when Ouran ended, but since my relationship with Skip Beat is far more personal, this one hurts even more.

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…as my dear kouhai arrives from his business trip to Japan, so does my Hana to Yume magazine with the SIZZLING HAWT Skip Beat Furoku!! *squeals in the corner* Consider this my obligatory “My Skip Beat Kokoro no Tamago is not dead yet!” post, as I am finally In The Zone to catch up with the ongoing anime, after getting stuck at episode 4 a few months ago orz. Pressures from blogging begone! I’d rather watch and love Skip Beat and not just follow it for the sake of blogging. Lazy excuse to not blog about Skip Beat regularly, but makes for a more enjoyable and worthwhile experience for me ^__^

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2 episodes in, and Skip Beat still does not disappoint! Some people, like Fuyumaiden, found some of the anime comical scenes not so funny, and well, though I somewhat agree with this, I still find myself laughing at those scenes nonetheless. It seems that the subbers are catching up on this quick (or should I say, Chihiro fansubs caught up, and I sure hope ureshii-fansubs will too!), and quite a number of bloggers are covering it too, from traps, to tsunderes, among other fangirls, and new converts. Though, there seems to be a lack of testosterone power in the Skip Beat blogging scene (no, Impz is not counted). Glad to see more guys are getting into this show, Bateszi, ghostlightning, and Owen, in particular. With these guys joining in the Skip Beat bandwagon (and hopefully, many more to come?), I�m pretty positive that we�ll see an influx of editorial posts for Skip Beat sooner or later.

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You know something’s up when I post this early, when I go out of my way looking for a way to watch this in the office because the raw got released while I was asleep! As such, the screencaps are all crappy, bear with it till I get the actual raws.

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I somewhat had the motivation to translate this fun little interview of the Seiyuu cast (and later on, director Sayama herself), though I got tired not long after and just summarized some of the parts orz. I even asked help from my sensei for this because I fail a lot, even he said this is complicated o.O I know this translation is not really accurate, but alas, I don�t think anyone else has bothered translating this, so you�ve got no choice haha. If anyone of you knows if there�s a Chinese translation available for this, do tell� that�ll help enlighten me.

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I can no longer recall what made me stop following the Skip Beat manga yearssss ago. Oh right, I don�t think I even immersed myself into it before, which is most likely why I can�t remember the slightest of details with regards to the acting feats Kyoko undertook, or her antics with Ren. I can actually recall some bits and pieces, but not so vividly as a true fan would. But now, after yearsss I finally got back to the Skip Beat bandwagon, dragging my brother with me to the heights of Skip Beat nirvana, ohohoho (I checked and I had the raws of volumes 1-11 way back 2005, never been touched. imagine that T__T) Just for the record, my brother is not like Impz who can tolerate and stomach quite a lot of shoujo works. He hates Marmalade Boy to the core, same with ItaKiss which he deems to lack development. Then we also ended up having an argument about Saiunkoku where I had to defend Shuurei with all my might but failed to convince him nonetheless. So yeah, I think you can see a bit of his standards of a good manga / anime.

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Looks like this news came out real early, like way back 5 or so days ago. Katsuyuki Konishi is casted as Ren! I know people are having mixed feelings over this news, and those who already had this image of Ren (with their ideal seiyuu to boot) are especially disappointed.

I’d like to think that I’m a bit on the “yay!” side with this one. I was trying to recall Katsuyuki Konishi’s voice as Soubi (Loveless), Ousaki-sempai (La Corda d’ Oro), etc., and it initially didn’t quite fit the supposedly ‘image’ I had of Ren. But then I read the manga, and started imagining how it would seem like with Katsuyuki Konishi’s voice, and I actually found it fitting for his snarky, somewhat egotistic yet gentle character.

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