Aishiteruze Baby

You'll have to forgive me for thinking the worse for japanese anime and manga culture. I have been exposed to much too much of the stuff. Anyway, the worst that I have seen involves something so utterly disgusting but apparently popular enough to be called "lolicon" (no, there's much, much worse but I won't say it). The first part of that word stems from "lolita" so you get the idea. When I first watched the first several minutes of Aishiteruze Baby, I had a terrible, terrible feeling it was going to be just that.

Fortunately I was quite wrong. But knowing that there exists something called the internet, there is probably going to be fan-made crap that will twist the entire thing into such trash.

I'll stop thinking so terribly about this show and talk about how cute it is.

Hooray! It's a schoolkid story that's neither boring nor ridiculous! A 15 17 year old boy is put in guardianship of his 5 year old cousin when her mother disappears. It's all a bit disturbing at first because the boy's got some weird relationships with his female friends at school, but it's all innocent. An innocent love at first sight. :)

The story develops with realistic issues that a 5 year old could experience. None of that candy-coated "my friends have better toys than me" crap. More like issues of abandonment, solitude, jealousy, child abuse... on the other hand, the show deals with them at a decent pace and without making you feel like throttling certain characters despite some weighty topics.

Jorgh probably won't like the series too much because it doesn't have any hand-to-hand combat, perpetual powering up, absurd comedy, or boobs. OK, it has boobs. But not naked boobs.

ADD.: So the manga series ends differently, and it's much, much more heart-tugging than the anime ending, although things seemed more rushed.

Random Stuff Day

Since I was asked to supply for a school downtown starting next Monday, I will celebrate by posting a number of odds and ends that I wanted to share with you. And by "you," I mean Little V. And everyone else. But especially Little V. :D

• Cheer up, right away! If you don't, then just keep clicking. If you don't like it then you're a heartless bastard.



• A blog I randomly stumbled upon, while searching for the elusive mp3 albums of Sesame Street Fever and the even more difficult to pin down Mickey Mouse Disco. There are a lot of other weird albums and music/tv related things downloadable on the site.



• A hard as $%@! intelligence test that claims every question is "common sense;" but like all "intelligence tests," there are a fair number of "WTF-how-the-crap-am-I-supposed-to-know-that-you-stupid-freaks." By the way, you have to make sure you type the answer exactly the way the test wants to receive it (barring capitalization), so you need to pluralize things or spell things correctly.



• Souhaku Scans, which distributes some scanlated manga titles. In particular, Yakitate!! Japan. Most recently, I read Angel Densetsu, which turns out to be so fricking hilarious that my neighbours think I escaped from the mental hospital.



• When is Yakitate!! Japan updated??? (and "Where's Naruto!?") They'll post the titles of the newest scanlated manga releases of the day, although regardless you'll have to hunt for some of them through IRC.

Year-End Update

Dear all,

Amid turkey leftovers, guest-receiving, chocolate overdoses, a new washer arrival, and a terrible, terrible mess to clean up from the delivery, I'm having a wonderful holiday. It lasts for another week, or two, or whenever. As it so happens, my long vacation is a result of a good and/or bad thing - being a supply teacher.

Anyway, I would like to start to end this year's blogging by trying to remind myself what happened over 2005. Uh...

January

Continued to work at the school. Constant reminders of why teaching is a hit-and-miss game pop up everywhere. Also, January tends to be the most depressing month due to nothing happening.

February

Ivo comes to visit and cheers me up immensely. :):):) ... Winter is also starting to look less ugly due to my first trip to the tubing place. Stupid shit happens with the landlord.

March

Nagging thoughts over purpose of obtaining two degrees.

April

The Pope dies. Why is this such a big event to me, I'm not even sure anymore... Waves of strike days further disturb the regularity of the school year at the school, not to mention the teacher turnovers during the year.

May

More of my strike escapades. 3/4 of the school disappears to the wild for a character-building camping trip, while the leftovers like myself are stranded at school to fend for ourselves.

June

Exam corrections, and biking diversions pepper my month. The anniversary of my father's death still hurts.

July

Trip to Cowtown and environs. Weddings strengthen the family bonds. Got to see Wesley. :D Also, got to meet the psycho vampire dog Bobo. :|

August

Disappointed with myself not getting a job for the school year. :( Nonetheless, I made a vow to continue working in Quebec.

September

Amazing training to run 5 km! Well, not really that amazing. I turn 25. Does that mean I'm just an old baby?

October

Amazingly completed the run. @_@ Also, amazingly obtained a driver's licence. @______@ Also, the start of a long supply teaching run...

November

Continued the long supply teaching run. Happily, it means that I shouldn't be as worried as the summer to obtain a job, hopefully for the reasons I'm thinking of. The word "pancake" keeps popping up. Eddie's grandma passes away. :(

December

Birth of PJ the 3rd. :) Along the same lines, I learned the virtues of ordering things online. The possible start of crazy buying sprees... Felix and Rachel separately visit for the holiday break. :D:D:D

---

Jorgh visits me every month or so. I also go to Montreal every so often to shower him with gifts and/or food. I mean "and."

I met many interesting people and had lots of memorable experiences. I keep reading more and more manga when I should actually try to read real books, but I find pictures and stories more attractive. Might this be the real start of a different path?

Manga List

I break my one post a day habit sometimes. Here's a list of manga that I have read or am reading now.

• Naruto - spikey-blond-haired little brat in a ninja village
• Hunter X Hunter - spikey-dark-haired boy who wants to become a hunter to find his father
• Great Teacher Onizuka - spikey-blond-haired former extra-tough gang member who becomes a teacher
• Fruit Basket - gentle girl who gets involved with an unusal family
• 3X3 Eyes - girl runs into guy, guy gets killed by girl's pet, girl eats guy's soul, guy has to protect girl for the rest of their existence, guy falls for girl... classic love story
• Inu Yasha - doggy boy with cute ears
• Cardcaptors Sakura - Sakura captures magical cards, while Syaoran pines for both Sakura and another boy... it gets kinda shounen-ai too
  
• Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE (which is written just as you see it here) - Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptors Sakura, back in completely different and convoluted adventures
• Yakitate! Japan - about breadmaking and NO it's not boring.
• Gokusen - a female new teacher who happens to be the granddaughter of a Yakuza leader
• Angel Sanctuary- a brother and a sister... uh... and some weird stuff about angels and demons.
• Kimagure Orange Road - a family with odd powers try to maintain a normal life... with powers...
• Penguin Brothers - spunky girl out to resolve a school gang war
• Haru yo Koi - find out for yourself ;)

I read the end of Chobits, and I read one chapter each of One Piece, Bleach, and Full Metal Alchemist, but they don't strike me with too much interest. Besides, I have all these other manga I have to catch up with. ;)

A Bunch of Posts!

Damn right!

---

Vacation was good and bad in Alberta and TO.


The whole reason why we went to Calgary in the first place. Congratulations, Ilinca and Curtis!

Good: seeing my cousins in TO and Alberta, wedding meal, visiting Wesley, Banff and Lake Louise, Calgary Zoo (hence the sudden red panda craze), no heat wave (thank God), Aki and Betty's "vampire dog" Bobo after it calmed down.


One of four asian elephants at the Calgary Zoo. So cute!

Bad: how sad MH was, crazy urban planning in Cowtown, the misleading provincial-tax-lessness (because of more expensive goods), lack of any actual good chinese food in the two-block Chinatown, homeliness, homelessness, lack of humidity, lack of any plushie cows in the entire freaking city, driving back from MH (I thought I was going to *DIE*), Aki and Betty's "vampire dog" Bobo when it bit Michelle and Brian


Ugly photo of pretty mountains next to Banff. You should go there!

Funny: more pick-up trucks than SUVs in Montreal, "honour system" train, cowboy hats, Albertan accent, crazy freaky people roaming, Aki and betty's "vampire dog" Bobo.


Bobo the "Vampire Dog." Bad dog!

---

Anyway, I thought I would just tell you some projects I am (attempting to start) working on.

Firstly, the webcomic is still stuck in limbo, since I had an idea what to do a long, long time ago before I started drawing the damn thing. Then I lazily forgot what was going to happen, which led to a terrible, terrible standstill. I have every intention to complete the project, but it's massive. (Following the BG1 storyline, without all the sidequests and idiotic backtracking.) So I'm contemplating on that while I'm working on finishing the game. No, I haven't finished the game. Not once. No. Dammit.

I posted those BG portraits some weeks ago, so you're always free to use for your own personal games, or just to stare at and worship, or something equally as hilarious. I am working on some more portraits as well, just to fill out the necessary roles. (Like the triple-classed whatnot... eh, who am I kidding. That one'll probably look like a freak.) What I can't do very well is everything having to do with non-person features. Clothes, weapons, props, backgrounds, etc. - these are the things I will be featuring more often in my drawings.

I have been reading many mangas online. This led me to recall a story years ago I wanted to work on in manga form, though I am afraid to start drawing and stop, due to forgetting the story *coughwebcomiccough* ... so I am writing the whole thing out before drawing. I'll present a draft of a few chapters here when I finish. Just to note, the writing is presented in pseudo-manga form, so don't expect an award-winning novel format.

That's all folks!