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Shigofumi
10/31/2008 10:31:00 PM
Anime portraying dark sides of life isn't really my cup of tea. That being the case, were I to choose an anime amongst many, I would probably not choose Shigofumi. But since my brother had got the anime, it'd be a waste not to watch it and I thought, what the hell, I'll give it a shot.
In the beginning, everything seems pretty sweet, with the typical bright colors and cutesy scenes, one of which is of a boy who wants to confess his love to a girl. Despite the appearance of a mysterious girl (and an equally mysterious talking stick) named Fumika who came to deliver a letter from the girl's dead father to the girl's "boyfriend", nothing looks sinister. It all changes at the end of episode one, when the girl stabbed the boy to death because she suspected that he had found out about her secret.
Shigofumi's first episodes are pretty much independent of each other. Each of them tells a different story and presents different characters with different problems. The only thing(s) they have in common are Fumika and the Shigofumi. Shigofumi are letters from the dead, addressed to the living. Consider them as media on which the dead said their last words to a particular person. In character with the dead's person, the letter could be kind or plain or hateful or apologetic.
Considering that Fumika is the one who connects all stories together ever since the beginning, naturally her story--who she is, what her background is, and how she ended up being a Shigofumi mailgirl--is revealed towards the end of the twelve-episodes anime.
As I've mentioned, Shigofumi portrays the not-so-lovely aspects of life like loneliness, desperation, suicide, bullying, child pornography, and child abuse. It's extremely obvious that this is not a show for the children. But if you are an adult and open-minded enough, I'd say that it's really a good thing to watch. Not "good" in a screwed up way, but rather it makes you re-examine some things in life.
My favorite episode is "Tomodachi" (Friends), in which a high school boy's suicide led his father to take hostage of his former class in search of an answer to why his son committed suicide. Nobody can provide an answer, though, since his closest friends were at loss too. The guy who committed suicide, Sen-chan, had had a pretty good life; he's well-liked amongst his peers, he hadn't been bullied or anything, and his family wasn't a broken one. Fumika then made a grand entrance, delivering Sen-chan's letter to Kotake, his closest friend. In it, Sen-chan put it simply that just because one didn't want to die, it didn't necessarily mean that he wanted to live. He didn't really want to die; he was just in the mood to jump, period. This might sound odd to you people, since you can expect yourself to die when you jump off an apartment building, but I understand it perfectly and I think that's why I love this particular episode very much.
Through the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Bali has become synonymous with paradise on earth. Nice sandy beaches, lush paddy fields, a place where artistry and piousness become one. Needless to say, to most people Bali seems to be a place out of this world. It is true even for a person like myself, who happen to be a citizen of a country called the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, a country Bali is actually a part of (although, ironically, not many people realize this fact).
Therefore, when I finally did have the chance to visit the island, I was looking forward to something different. Something that, as I've put it, is out of this world. And I was rather disappointed upon witnessing that Bali is pretty much like other parts of Indonesia that I've gone to so far.
There are the good aspects, like the laid-back attitude and sheer hospitality, which presented itself quite clearly as everyone said, "Hello, mister," to every white person passing by. And there are some not-so-good aspects, like clogged ditches and people defecating at the riverbank. But the place, despite its Hindu population dominating the scene in contrast to the country's Muslim majority, was as close as home to me, because the Balinese are just like the people I've seen and met everyday in my hometown. I can relate to them and I like them for it.
The weird thing was, I felt more connected to the islanders than to fellow tourists/visitors. These visitors, be it Indonesians or foreigners, lived a lifestyle so different from mine that I was often at loss to how to respond to this. These were the people who hung out at cafes and pubs regularly, who had drinks every now and then, who felt the need to dance when the band was playing (even when they didn't fancy that band). I've never been in that sort of circle all my life that it's overwhelming, if stifling (the smoke, man, the smoke!).
The moral of the story is that wherever you go you'd find people similar to you as well as the ones different from you and you'd better deal with it. But never lose your ground. So there, my no-so-Bali experience. The end.
What We Are
10/24/2008 04:14:00 PM
We are not our cars
We are not our jobs
We are not our money
We are not our families
We are not our spouses
We are not our standings in society
We are not animals
We are not flesh and blood
We are not accidents waiting to happen
But then
What are we?
So, I've just come home from volunteering for an event in Bali, and these are the things I've learned from that experience:
1) I'm still a long way from becoming an "adult"
As I see it, an adult is one who can keep his/her composure all the times, capable of maintaining his/her ground without worrying about what people might say about it, and has the ability to communicate smoothly with virtually anyone. And unfortunately, I'm still lacking in those three. Maybe I'll have more of them as I get older, who knows? Only time will tell....
2) Working intensely with the same set of people for a lengthy period of time is emotionally tiring
I only had one purpose for coming to Bali: volunteering. Thus, in addition to working eight to six for nearly a week, "volunteering" constantly dominated my thought, even when I was off duty. Therefore, the tension lingered and I often found myself wondering about some people's inadequacy at doing their job, outside working hours. (And I think some people might feel the same way about me.)
3) Do the things you do whole-heartedly because otherwise it sucks
It's annoying, seeing people who were clearly more into taking a vacation rather than volunteering, because such people tended to not taking their job seriously. And what's more exasperating than watching people dilly-dallying around while you're working your ass off? (Pardon my choice of words.) The point is, if you're not set for doing something, you'd better not do it in the first place because it's pointless.
4) Jerks are jerks, no matter what their nationalities are
Degrading as it is, it is widely believed that Indonesians are lazy and just can't do their job well, and the opposite is applied to Westerners. Tell you what, anyone who believes it is a moron, because laziness and irresponsibility has nothing to do with where you're from.
After careful rereading of previous chapters, which made me stayed up until two o'clock in the morning, I finally managed to somewhat grasp a few confusing aspects of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. And here they are:
Body
A person's shell, which gives him/her his/her outward appearance.
Feather
In TRC, feathers are representations of Sakura's soul. Actually, it was Fei Wong Reed that converted her soul to feathers so that they could scatter to different dimensions.
Heart/Soul
An aspect of a person where his/her feelings, memories, and consciousness lie. (Do not confuse it with our conventional understanding about heart/soul.) Thus, someone who was without heart, like C!Syaoran, couldn't feel any physical or mental pain and could easily kill people without flinching. Souls/hearts (Sakura's feathers included) are the things that Fei Wong Reed collects in order to fulfill his wish.
Heart/soul can be given, lent, and copied. However, it doesn't mean that the receiver would have the same heart as the heart/soul's real owner. Meaning, the one receiving the heart would be a different person from the one giving/lending/providing it.
Example 1: C!Sakura still ended up liking C!Syaoran despite not having a portion of past memory about him.
Example 2: It took some time for C!Syaoran to warm up to others, even though he had received a part of R!Syaoran's heart. Having R!Syaoran's heart didn't make him identical to Syaoran; he neither had R!Syaoran's memories nor temperaments.
Example 3: Before C!Sakura's soul perished, she gave it to C!Syaoran. Receiving clearly didn't turn C!Syaoran into Sakura. It just made him being able to feel again (bringing back the old C!Syaoran, perhaps?!).
I could go on and on about this forever, but alas, it's late already (at least it's late when I'm writing this). Buh-bye!
Note: If you wish to take a glance at TSUBASA RESERVoir CHRONiCLE, you can read it at One Manga. However, to support CLAMP, please buy it in your nearest bookstore once it's licensed and available in your country. TSUBASA RESERVoir CHRONiCLE is the property of CLAMP, Kodansha, and Production I. G. I own nothing.
I squealed when I heard that Hana Yori Dango made it to the big screen. As a fan of the series, I was looking forward to it. Maybe I wouldn’t get to watch it until the DVD is released. But for the time being, I decided to surf the internet and tried looking for some review.
Thankfully, Random Curiosity, which is the best blog about anime (and few doramas) out there, provided review as lengthy as I could expect. At first, it sounded quite promising. It seems that everyone who loves the series would have themselves ambushed with a sense of nostalgia watching the movie, which is good. But then, as I went further to the spoilery part of the review, a weird sensation started creep over me. It’s called nausea.
Hana Yori Dango Final follows the common pattern of every other romantic comedy on earth (or any of its predecessors for that matter; the TV series, I mean). A boy and a girl (or a man and a woman) having had to go through all adversities before realizing that they loved each other and finally living happily ever after. The problem is since Tsukushi and Tsukasa had already been an item, the adversities were limited to looking for something that they’d lost in Las Vegas and Hong Kong and being stranded in an uninhabited island. There’s no love-hate or we’re-cool-but-that’s-all or I-like-you-but-I-don’t-know-how-you-feel relationships. You know, the kind of thing you see in When Harry Met Sally or While You Were Sleeping (two of my all time favorite romantic comedies).
In their places, present all that stuff about is-he-the-one, are-we-destined-to-be-together, what’s-my/your-most-precious. I’m sorry, it’s just too much for me. The lovey-dovey stuff is so excessive (at least that’s the impression I got from the review) that I want to throw up. That’s why I never like Titanic or Romeo+Juliet.
But hey, look at the bright side. At least the ever-so-charming Matsumoto Jun starred it. That’s more than enough reason to watch Hana Yori Dango Final.
Exchanged babies, American diplomat, Antichrist. Ring a bell? If you say The Omen, you're almost right. Only that it's a different kind of Omen, not THE Omen, but Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.
The idea is actually very simple, just like any ideas that make good books usually are. What if the satanic worshipper got it all wrong? What if, instead of exchanging the American diplomat's child with her master's son, she switched an accountant's (whose foster parents--the American attaché and his wife--were successfully persuaded to name him Warlock) with her master's (later called Adam)? This poses another question: would he be just as "evil" as he supposed to be, since he's undetected and thus, wouldn't have a satanic worshipper guided him to the dark side and all? To put it differently, which would be the dominant side determining his actions, genes or environment? (In The Omen, the answer was the former; Damien had already had devilish tendency, it seemed, even without having that nanny sent to him.)
Fortunately, unlike many stories whose only good point is their main idea (like that Chick-Lits that are all about getting men and living happily ever after), Good Omens has unpredictable plot and solid characterizations. Its characters are the kinds whom you'd know how they would act in a certain condition, since each and every characters' has such distinguishable nature. Like Aziraphale the metrosexual angel ("...gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide."), or Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell ("'Awa' wi' ye, harlot,'...") who's a grumbler but really a softy at heart and happens to be my favorite character ;p.
Of course, it's not Neil Gaiman's unless it's full of metaphors, puns, and plain funniness. It's not always easy to understand them because (a) I'm not British; (b) English isn't my first language. And so the references he made didn't always make sense to me, considering I wasn't familiar with what he was referring to. But most of the times, I still found them funny, such as "Two shadowy figures, one hunched and squat, the other lean and menacing, both of them Olympic-grade lurkers. If Bruce Springsteen had ever recorded 'Born to Lurk,' these two would have been on the album cover." or the "Four Bikers of the Apocalypse" instead of the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" because they rode motorbikes and not horses or "Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole."
It's safe to say that Good Omens has been very entertaining, which is why I now list them among my favorite books (I like it better than other Gaiman's works that I've read, Anansi Boys and Neverwhere). But if you want something more than "entertaining", don't worry, it has it. Good Omens is not just about the Apocalypse and the Antichrist being brought up in a nice, lovely countryside. It's also about humans who most of the times are neither being good or evil, but simply being humans. And if we want our problems sorted out, we'd better sort ourselves up rather than hoping for Divine intervention, just like Adam said, "...if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive."
Ever since I learned the joy of watching football, the English Premier League in particular, I'd been indulged with top quality matches, served for free before me. In other words, instead of having to pay for cable to watch them, like so many did in other countries, I got to see them as long as I had a TV set. No decoder or receiver or monthly fee.
However, the it's-all-for-free ended this season (it was last season actually, but then because of all the protesting, we got to see some matches, despite most of them being Middlesborough's for who knows what reason) and I was left in the state of despair. Seriously! Not being able to watch Manchester United is bad enough, but not being able to watch any EPL match is abysmal. Of course, I can go to that cable TV representative office and ask for a subscription anytime. It's just that I have more pressing matters on which to spend my money to.
But then, something happened. This godsend came in the form of reruns. It was not many, only two matches per week (three, if you count Arsenal TV, but I don't watch Arsenal unless they lose or tie, which is, sadly, not that often), but let me tell you something. Once you lost something and had no hope of getting it back, the time that "something" was given to you, even though it's just a scrap of what it used to be, you'd find yourself being more grateful than you could possibly be under normal circumstances. In other words, I'm very thankful that I can at least watch some Premier League.
The drawback would be that I would already know how the matches ended, which is more or less takes the fun of it, especially when the team I rooted for lost. But again, it's better than nothing. And now if you'll excuse me, I've got Portsmouth vs. Everton to watch.
In many cultures, ancestors are looked upon with such respect that it's not uncommon to worship them. Ancestors are said to be more knowledgeable because they, unlike younger generation, had direct access to the Supreme Power, or gods, or the Creator, and thus, had received the ultimate wisdom from Him or they, which was to be the society's guidelines on living and perceiving life.
Nowadays, in the so-called modern society, the teachings of ancestors have become a thing of the past. Many people choose rationalism instead and laughed at "old teachings" that they considered as full-of-non-sense myth. They're clearly lacking imagination, I say. Can't they see that our ancestors were insightful visionaries and master storytellers?
Doesn't it amaze you that even today, God-knows how many years after our ancestors started inventing their stories, everyone still love to learn about them? And it's not just the scholars either; commoners who know nothing about anthropology and classics enjoy reading creation myths, tales of the underworld, and folklore too. These stories, whether they're created by a single person or developed for generations until taking their current forms that we know of today, still retain their magic, despite not being able to retain their power as means of social control anymore.
Nevertheless, I can't help marveling at the comprehensiveness of these ancestors-created stories, be it a myth, legend, or folklore. Maybe that's why everyone likes them. They tell you everything: about how the world and men (and women) were created, why animals can't talk, what actually happens when a volcano erupts, what happens after a person dies, and so on.
Even though to us they are but amusements, they're certainly believable enough that there was a time when people actually based their lives on them. If a myth told them to sacrifice humans as to avoid the wrath of a goddess, they would obey it unquestioningly. If a legend said that a malevolent spirit lived in a particular area and better be left alone, they would never come near that place.
And if you still thought that such stories could only come out of ignorant minds that were incapable of seeing beyond the supernatural, you'd better think twice. Haven't it occurred to you that the ones creating these stories--the sages or shamans or priests or whoever they were--were in fact really intelligent? Maybe they posed a restriction in order to protect their natural resource, or maybe they presented such logic to evoke fear and submission. Talk about a visionary. Or a tyrant.
One thing's for sure, though. I wish I can have one tenth of their creativity so that I can come up with a bestseller book. Ha, keep on dreaming, mate!
I think I had childhood dream once, just like everyone. But just like many people, I left it at childhood. And now I forget what it was. It doesn't mean that I don't remember what I wanted to become when I was a kid. Let me list down some for you: an archeologist, a paleontologist, a goalkeeper, a writer, a comedian. But I'm not talking about professions here. I'm talking about my life's calling, my purpose on earth, something that made me go Aha! and said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life." If I really did know my purpose once, I'd say that I don't remember what it was anymore.
And since I don't know my purpose of being here, you can pretty much say that I'm lost right now. Wandering around, feeling restless, not knowing for sure what I'm doing here. Oh, and please, don't give me all that "Preparing yourself for the everlasting life" or "Struggling in order to obtain God's grace" thingy. Everyone says that all the time that it's become lame (people will butcher me for saying this). It doesn't mean that I don't believe in the afterlife or God; it's just that I believe each person has his/her own way on earth. And I haven't quite found my way yet, which is annoying.
Some might say that I should stop complaining and tell me to be thankful for what I've got. The "get a job, settle down" bXXXXXXt. But I can't just sit back, relax, and enjoy the scene. It's a state of convenience that makes me inconvenient. It's like comfortably watching a TV show and then suddenly realizing that there's something important that you gotta do. It's just that you forget what that "important" thing is.
I don't even know what I'm writing about anymore. It's just a random thought really. You can all shove it down the toilet if you like, be my guest.