It’s been more than a month since I had this post in mind, but for some reason I decided to forget about the idea and even scrapped my draft post for this orz. But lo and behold, as Crusader opens up the topic about biases, I decided to give this post one more shot. Also because I�ve learned some insights from a book I�m currently reading, Why Men Love Bitches, as out-of-character as my RL colleagues and friends find it to be. Just for the record, I don�t really agree with everything that�s written in this book, because of several principles I adhere to, but it�s valuable for gaining insights on the nature of both men and women (and it EMPOWERS women), similar to the book Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus Before I divert any further from the topic, here goes�

As you can see, most (like 99%?), if not all, the bloggers of True Tears and KimiKiss are people born with a Y chromosome. But well, considering the measly number of female bloggers on the interwebz, I think it goes without saying that there will always be more guys blogging a series rather than girls (with a few shoujo or BL shows as exception). The thing is, aside from the values, principles, beliefs, etc. that we have, gender also plays a role in our biases in anime, particularly how we perceive characters, why we support a certain girl, or a certain character archetype for the lead guy (or a guy for the lead girl, in the case of reverse harems). Like why I support Noe and Asuka, as opposed to Hiromi and Eriko, for instance, which I will be delving on in this post.

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Ok, this will be short and incoherent, because I still can’t believe all that has happened in this episode. All that’s in my mind right now is “Could this be IT?! The Shin x Noe ending?! O__O”

It’s all written in Shin’s eyes…!!

Shin finally realized, that the one who believed in him and his dreams, the one who allowed him to fly, is no one else but Noe!! Hiromi knows this herself, though she’s been convincing herself that there’s no way Shinichirou can love anyone else but her.

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I was initially going to set aside this post, but my love for Noe made me persist to finish this one.

Until the last episode, I was ready to run up my white flag for a Shin x Noe ending, which resulted to my bittersweet Noe-moing. This episode, however, brought a faint hope of that ending with Shin. Whether this was made to give Noe fans a sense of false hope, we�ll see next week. Damn that cliffhanger! >_<

While people are contending whether Shin’s reminiscence of Noe are simply out of guilt, or a genuine love, I’ll express my opinion about the latter’s possibility.

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Something came to me after watching True Tears episode 10 and I started composing this Perso-Noe-fication of mine… I guess this is my way of emo-ing over Noe’s sad fate, made even worse by the spoilers I read x__x

I put myself in Noe’s shoes for a while, and came up with this monologue / letter, which is a mix of my own feelings and what I think would be Noe’s feelings. I just hope it didn’t become out of character ^^;;;

Here’s a sneak peak:

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Beloved Obaachama,

All along I thought Shinichirou would be the destined person to bring back my tears, not of sadness but of joy and happiness. But I guess I was wrong. How foolish I was to think that his love for me was true, when all that he told me that day turned out to be nothing else but empty promises. What’s simply written on the ephemeral snows were never made to last. That I should’ve known from the start. Oh why, of all times, did my magokoro (true-heart)-perceptiveness have to fail me that time.

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Look! It’s me bunneh!

First of all, I’m proud to say that I had a guest appearance in this episode. I am ze almighty rabbit who caused Jun and Hiromi to stumble and fall! mwahahaha. Ok, I kid. It was only a little prank, supposedly to heat up things between Jun x Hiromi, but my plan backfired as Shin ended up showing his true feelings with a hug of concern. Drats! TT__TT

*ahem* Hope you find that amusing, coz the next part of this post is gonna be emo~

a trickle of true tear…

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I managed to catch up with Persona this week, and wow, I�m hooked! This show has now escalated as one of my fave Winter offerings, side by side True Tears, both of which are instrumental to thawing my Winter�s block.

True Tears is shaping up to become one of the best dramas I�ve seen, with its godly animation, and great execution. It’s True Tears-rific. It�s like my forsaken dramas of the past, done right. The stereotype characters I supposedly hate are still there, the weak indecisive characters, but now I’m able to empathize with them. I don�t know if I owe that to the show itself, the presence of moe Noe, who makes the show less emo and more fun and whimsical, and the H&C-esque monologues, or is it because of my own maturity… hmm~ Nevertheless, I have become an avid Noe x Shin supporter after watching episode 8! I am so gonna cry if they won�t end up together ;___;

Both Persona and True Tears grew to become shows close to my heart now, cheesy as that might sound. Both these shows leave me hanging at the edge of my seat after the end of each episode, and make me emo. My Persona-l emoness is of the positive happy sentimental light, whilst True Tears is of the bittersweet heart-wrenching kind. In terms of Ai and Hiromi�s circumstances, that is, because Noe and Shinichirou�s development make me all giddy happy (and I hope it stays that way >_<)

I�ll delve more on Persona in this post, and save up my thoughts on True Tears in another post, if my True Tears-rific mode still hasn�t gone down by then. Many fanboys have already been praising this show, so I�m also thinking if I�ll be able to contribute something worthy o_o I feel like shipping Shin x Noe, but I was a bit saddened by the spoilers… *rids herself of evil thoughts* Hope I’ll be able to blog both these shows from now on =)

I feel a little more inclined to blog Persona, considering the lack of love its getting from bloggers, and my �innate ability� to fangirl over the show

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“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…

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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

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