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The “Watched in…” posts that I’ve done in the past are just a means to let me indulge in my Otakuism. It also lets me remember what I watched. This month, not too much, since the Olympics are on, and I love me some Olympics. I always enjoyed the winter ones over the summer. Short track, figure skating, downhill are much more thrilling to watch. Especially, the Canada vs. USA hockey game today.

As for anime, here’s the list:

Genshiken series 1, OAV, series 2 (ep. 1-5). Genshiken is a Japanese abbreviation for “The Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture.” By “Modern Visual Culture” they’re talking about manga/dojinshi, anime, and video games. The “society” part just means it’s about a bunch of geeky college students hanging out with one another reveling in their favorite past times: collecting erotic dojinshi at comicfests, cosplaying, and dissecting anime. If you’re into anime, there’s a character in this group that reflect some part of you. For me, it had to be Sasahara. I can pick up the references and I know of otaku things but I still kinda stand on the outside when it comes to being a hardcore otaku. By far my favorite character in the series is Saki — she’s the self-proclaimed non-otaku of the group, but hangs around because her boyfriend is a diehard. She tends to give a nice opposing view to the rest of the group and sometimes when the infighting starts or problems crop up, she’s the one who sets the nerds straight.

Kimi ni Todoke (ep. 17-20). I’ve talked about this anime in previous posts. I really liked how it started. It’s shojo and girly, for sure, but I thought Sawako carved herself a distinguished role amongst other shojo heroines. She isn’t an idiot or overly bubbly. She wasn’t just blindly in love but rather respected Kazahaya because he represented everything she wasn’t. A lot of her internal monologues I feel are thoughts that anyone, girl or boy, might have, and I still think all those things about Kimi ni Todoke are awesome. Some of the plotting seems a bit overdramatic — but that’s shojo. By far, the biggest problem I’m having is that the show seems to be wavering in its focus, which seems to be an issue with shojo too. By episode 17 in the series, Sawako’s initial problems and story-arc are pretty much over — there’s only one thing left (in my mind). There’s still some fun episodes, but the focus for these episodes is on her friends and Sawako and Kazahaya take a back seat. So I hope the rest of the series pulls it back into focus. They’re also planning a live-action movie for the series and I’m looking forward to that too.

Fruits Basket (ep. 10-26). This was still the accidental anime I found on my way to watch Honey and Clover over at Hulu.com. It’s still the show I kept on as background noise as I made dinner and went about relaxing in the evening. I could do that because the show is dubbed. The voices aren’t atrocious. I’ve read about the comic on Wikipedia. Apparently the anime series is only a mere pittance of the actual tome of sequential art that makes up the rest of the story, and it shows. In the end, after 26 episodes, it peters out. They try and make a resolution. The theme towards the end just seems to be “let’s stay together, always.” The comic goes on to tell the story of how Taru ends the zodiac curse. She meets the other Soma members, graduates high school, and there’s even a page or two about her golden years. The show is cute, but skippable.

Moribito (ep. 24-26). I finished the book before I finished the anime since the discs are so hard to get from Netflix — they’re always out and apparently in high demand. Both the YA novel and anime follow the same story, but the anime has more since they had to space things out over 26 episodes. The music, painted scenery, and attention to detail and animation make this show outstanding, but I don’t expect anything less from Kenji Kamiyama. Just watch Eden of the East or Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If you want something anime that’s not just pantsu or moe, check out Kamiyama’s work.

And that’s it for anime this month. I’ve finished up a bunch of series and I’m ready for new ones, so my otaku obssession hasn’t come to a close yet. Next up is more Genshiken and Welcome to the NHK and whatever else gets recommended to me.

You might ask, do I just watch anime all day? No. It’s a good way to relax on week nights after work. I’ll have more to discuss about my other pet projects in the weeks to come. I hope to be nearing the close on one of them and I can’t wait to write about it.

Also, next month, to further my otaku adventures, I’ll be going to Japan for a week and a day. My friend B is visiting her kids in the land of the rising sun. I happened to IM her one day in February and asked her “How’s Japan?”

She says, “It’s great! You should come over here!”

So I bought a ticket.