[Current Games and Characters]
Brother Deer @Aather

[Previously]
oldmanwalking | Auron | Final Fantasy X -- @CFUD
armageddog | Yuzuriha Nekoi | X by CLAMP -- @CFUD
anoathforgotten | Naminé | Kingdom Hearts -- @CFUD
clericchronicle | Chris | Demon Diary -- @CFUD
necrophyllo | Tsuzuki Asato | Yami no Matsuei -- @Microcosm
aheadinthegame | Kronos | Highlander: the Series -- @CFUD
reigningred | Nakajima Youko | The Twelve Kingdoms -- @CFUD
arterialmotive | Kuran Kaname | Vampire Knight -- @CFUD
۞unicursed | Taiki | The Twelve Kingdoms -- @Sabra
ancestuous | Kuran Kaname | Vampire Knight -- @Aather
۞lovedinrain | Kuran Juuri | Vampire Knight -- @Sabra
۞carpedemon | Raenef | Demon Diary -- @Sabra
suicidewatch | Tsuzuki Asato | Yami no Matsuei -- @Aather

[dressing rooms/homeless/nowhere]
Taiki | The Twelve Kingdoms | byyourthrone
Tamaki Suoh | Ouran High School Host Club acommonking
Kuran Haruka | Vampire Knight | purelybeloved
Tsubaki-hime/Eileen | Yami no Matsuei | liesovrthesea

I haven't posted in a few months.


Survival Strategyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

YnM RAWS
The Mahjong extra chapter from June: find scans here!
- Tsuzuki, Rikugou, Touda, and Sohryuu in a Mahjong battle.

Newest chapter of YnM released last month: on the comm (it's locked tho, must join to view).
- Shikigami world again
- Lots of scenery :/ Grand return Matsushita.
- Short chapter

Animes watched recently:
All of Code Geass. :Db
And caught up with Penguindrum (ep 14). PS, UTENA FANS WHO HAVEN'T HEARD OF THIS SERIES, YOU SHOULD WATCH PENGUINDRUM. It's destinyyyy. Also, written and directed by Ikuhara. You can see his fingerprints in like every scene... plus he trollin.

lol yup

- ANN article
- Original source
- discussion on yami_no_matsuei
- celphone photo of a page from the extra chapter. Tsuzuki playing mahjong.
ETA: Some scans/photos (see comments)


It's baaaaaaaack??

New Yami no Matsuei Manga Chapter Runs in June

...9 YEARS. It's a Special Edition chapter, so probably not related to the ongoing plot?

Not only is Matsushita drawing the Descendants of Darkness Special Edition (Yami no Matsuei: Tokubetsu-hen) chapter, but she is also drawing the main characters Tsuzuki and Hisoka on the front cover of The Hana to Yume magazine.

Note, The Hana to Yume is a spinoff magazine to the original Hana to Yume. If anyone has access to and is checking the regular Hana to Yume, you probably won't find it there.

Re: the new art style. There was some talk on Plurk, and this comment by harukami rings particularly true: "The impression I keep getting is that she learned to draw partially to be able to draw her characters how she (originally) envisioned them, not anticipating that she'd got like everyone used to and hooked on her art style because holy shit they look good just not like what I'm used to at all."

It's good! A nice style! Just. So different... And Hisoka's hair keeps changing. I GUESS WE'LL FIND OUT MORE ON THE 25TH, OH GOD I HOPE SOMEONE SCANS IT.

After way too long, got my first Ragnarok Online character to level 99 a few nights ago (Ymir server). Renewal is awesome guys.

I could probably talk and roll around Madoka discussions for the next week.

( Madoka Magica )

Wow I haven't posted here in a while! So here's some of the things I've scanned and uploaded in various places the past few weeks for icon-making fodder, sharing here:

----

♦ The Twelve Kingdoms doujin: God Save the Takasato-kun?! (Megaupload link) - 46 pages
Cross-posted to juuni_kokki.
♦ Description: A Taiki fanbook. Little short scenes and omake taking place during the Demon Child novel. There's a bit with Gyousou at the end, too. Pretty nice doujin! One of the only ones I know of with older Taiki. Kudos to vulchu for finding it for me.

Blurb: For anyone not familiar with the Demon Child novel, a teacher-in-training Hirose-sensei takes in the student Takasato (aka Taiki) after looking into the strange things happening around him. The doujin has a light-hearted look into novel scenes, like Hirose meeting Takasato's stressed-out mother, a 4-koma of Takasato encountering Youko randomly in Japan, and etc.

---


♦ Yami no Matsuei Vol 06 (megaupload)
♦ Notes: So I got tired of the old, ass-quality scanslations that were online. I scanned the official English volume of YnM #6. High Quality, though some pages are a bit meh due to figuring out my scanner.
File size: 186.96 MB
Cross-posted to free_manga

---

Yami no Matsuei anime screencaps!
Cross-posted to yami_no_matsuei
.PNG and zipped

Nagasaki arc:
♦ Ep 01: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SBRZ1LLJ (235 caps) - renaming files screwed up the order on a few, sorting by date is suggested.
♦ Ep 02: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6X54PDK4 (251 caps)
♦ Ep 03: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0AIFWUAC (217 caps)

King of Swords arc:
♦ Ep 07: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MXQYM5O0 (230 caps)
♦ Ep 08: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HJCE0TQ3 (162 caps)
♦ Ep 09: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2HJH0KNR (223 caps)

Kyoto arc:
♦ Ep 10: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PH3MYTW0
♦ Ep 11: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UR9CW0ZK
♦ Ep 12: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PUQY4OI0
♦ Ep 13: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I6ZQ4OB9

Ooh my God dudes, Puella Magi Madoka Magica is one of the best "Magical Girl" series out there and it has eaten all my viewing-interest. Animated by the same people who gave you Bakemonogatari and Zetsubo Sensei. "It's a wholesome series, really!"<--- lies. Warning, it is a bit darker than standard Magical Girl fare? More serious in many senses. But the animation is great, and the "Labyrinth" sections are an acid trip.

Only 6 episodes out right now (out of eventual 12?). You should watch them. At least, watch up to episode 3 before deciding. How do I bribe you?

And the series wiki, for the curious.

Pact pact pact pact pact. ◕‿‿◕

45 Tsuzuki (Yami no Matsuei) icons I colored for the Aather RP but wanted to share. A handful are old, but most are new.

Preview:


( icons )

I bought Pushing Daisies season 2 today and just binged on 8 episodes (since I've never seen season 2). Want more, but already 4 am.

I love it so much. Gorgeous, color-saturated modern fairy-tale, and pies. Chuck's fashion sense is so awesome and gorgeous. I want fic of Olive finding out about Ned's powers and hijinks ensuing. :{

I've hardly updated this month! But here are some things:

- The relaxacon retreat was so awesome, and then it snowed about 11 inches back home while I was gone. Ha ha. :'D

- My birthday was on the 17th! It was super enjoyable, went to Ruby Tuesday with the Friday Gang (on a Wednesday!) and as part of my present I got them to watch Sherlock ep 1. (Ep 2 and 3 followed as of last week).

Also, a big lol and thank you to whoever sent me this blingee (I assume you are in CFUD). WHO ARE YOU I hope you got my thanks in cfud chat.

- As mentioned above, I watched SHERLOCK. Or, with more accurate emotes and html, ~♥SHERLOCK♥~ the 2010 BBC version/miniseries. I feel the pull of new fandom because ack my heart Sherlock and John Watson in the modern day and awesome plot and cases. The Great Game I pretty much sat through looking like: 8|!!! Why won't new things come out until August 2011? SADNESS.

- I got to 4k words on my nano and stopped. Next time, I'm going in with an outline. And by next time I mean I'm picking this shit up in January so I can make my housemate watch either Sherlock or Kick Ass or Noroi the Japanese horror movie or SOMETHING (WE HAD A DEAL. I WRITE 25k WORDS AT LEAST AND I CAN MAKE ALLY AND JESS WATCH ANYTHING, AND VICE VERSA. My friends are totally awesome though I uber failed. :U!)

- Working on Thanksgiving weekend aaahhh so busy.

- I have a whole week off! A vacation for me. I don't go back to work until next Thursday.

- Heading off tomorrow to the relax-a-con two hours north. A whole REAL weekend off of work and dedicated to ART STUFF and NANOWRIMO! Filled with local convention staff and fellow geeks, a convention of nothing but hanging out at a hotel. I will hopefully get things done. :) And get my word count up.

- My birthday on the 17th. 8)

- My aunt had triplets about a month ago. THIS IS EXCITING we don't have any twins or anything in our family. It's two girls and a boy.


No other news except I'm unofficially semi-hiatusing just for the weekend. The hotel has internet so I'll be around on IRC/gchat/twitter, and knowing me I'll slack off and surf all evenings anyway.

I haven't updated in a while! I will now.

I watched 1-13 eps of Durarara!! in two nights and I love it so much! There's something really refreshing about seeing modern technology be integrated (and a focal point) in any story, and in this case it's celphones and the internet.

But very few people in my immediate vicinity has seen it, so I link it to you (hey Mara hey!) now on AniplexUS's official youtube (it's all up! click CC for subs): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8NiXM70U

Why you might like it:
- Headless Horsewoman (a Dullahan) in modern day Ikebukuro Japan looking for her long-lost head. Her horse is a motorcycle.
- All the characters are much more complex than they first appear. Amazing, twisted, inspiring characters.
- One of the more sociopathic(?) and interesting antagonist that I can think of currently.
- Very nice animation!
- It's a novel series turned into an anime. If you liked Baccano!, Durarara!! is by the same author... there is a cameo.

In conclusion, I love technology.

---

On another note, eag maybe you will be pleased to know at Horror Movie Fest at a friend's last night a bunch of people started talking about your Shigure's Secret Homosexual Bondage Dungeon fic and I was like HEY I KNOW THAT FIC...! :D YOU FAMOUS AND STUFF. (FYI GOOD THINGS WERE SAID, YES)

Since flist is talking about Kingdom Hearts: BBS and there's an evil pumpkin coach in it, here's one that showed up in the only good part about Disney's Cinderella 3! (Yeah, I know they made a 3? There was a 2?! And you watched it??). Well, just continue:

Evil Pumpkin Coach Scene - homage to the original.

Cinderella 3 at least had people... do... things. It was "dark" for Disney, if full of ye ol' Sequel Movie flaws and the plot reads like a fanfic. Lady Tremaine gets Fairy Godmother's wand and retcons the end of the first movie so the shoe actually fits Anastasia (red-headed step-sis). THINGS HAPPEN, THEN APPARENTLY GET STRAIGHTENED and then wtf she turned the step-sis into Cinderella's look-alike to get married instead, Cinderella has to bust out of the pumpkin coach, hop a horse, and crash her own wedding. I... kinda like that!

Kudos, for giving Anastasia a conscience and character development, though I wish it had more sisterhood powerrrr and not about the POWER OF LOVE for a Trophy Prince you danced with for like two hours one night.

THIS IS A REPOST/CROSS-POST because I felt like it.
I am here to touch you in your slice of childhood that may have screamed "UNICORNS!!!"

( What are the Twelve Kingdoms? Why are there unicorns? TELL ME MORE )

I have never seen Breaking Bad, but this makes me want to:



Tossed a pizza on to the roof. Apparently the actor nailed it on the first shot, no trickery. Nice job.

EW: The moment when Walt angrily throws the pizza on top of the roof of his garage. (Cranston told my colleague Dalton Ross and me, “That was a nice accident, done in one take. We thought it would just kind of splatter against the house, but I held the pizza in my hand, testing its heft, and just gave it my best effort. Turned out nice, didn’t it?”)

Cannot find it on my Flist history... did one of you link an illustrated tutorial on "how to" use one of the machines from Inception? It was really cool and want to see again now that I know what it is hahaha.

EDIT: via darknightrain, found!

I enjoyed it a lot.

( LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT ENDING (spoilers) )

Per vulchu THE TRUE INCEPTION ENDING!

Via Music Room 3, chapter 81 of Ouran Host Club is out!
(.zip) - http://www.mediafire.com/?94l6vze6he06cpr
(.rar) - http://www.mediafire.com/?mbei31iyi78q9uj

( JUST SCANS AND FULL OF GUSHING FOR THIS MANGA )

One more arc until the end of the series!

Has anyone on my F-List watched "Kara No Kyoukai"? Especially the well-versed anime viewers among you. I'm just watching the fight scenes but it gets lots of kudos!! SHINY ANIMATION, a serious girl who is kicking ass, and zombies.
Ne, watch with me and go ooo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LvzWsWcpF0
As recommended by darknightrain watch this MAD too!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co_5TUdta4s& Super spoilers I guess, but damn it's pretty. >8|a

eta:
eag: loadbearing villain!
rubyd: loadbearing villain?
eag: "this building is your body! and you've been cut!"

Randomly, my mom got a new car/mini-van. :O It's silver and huge. So cooool.

Via iseeyouflaming: A sequel series to the Avatar: The Last Airbender show has been announced! Avatar: The Legend of Korra. Takes place 70 years after the first series and is apparently STEAMPUNK. EXCITING.



LOOK AT THAT PRETTY PICTURE.

IF YOU SEE THIS PICTURE ON YOUR FLIST LIKE MORE THAN TWICE, SORRY DUDES.

LOOKS GOOD, MAN. Lead female character, yessss. Kick some assss. PS to those who haven't seen A:TLA yet, watch it for the awesome girls, especially in season 2.

More links here: http://iseeyouflaming.livejournal.com/18695.html

Sooo apparently last year(?) Japan released a new figurine of Ryo of the Wildfire from Yoroiden Samurai Troopers ("Ronin Warriors").

Soooo coooool. I guess they're making it for the nostalgia factor? Old series is oooold. I found "remake!!1" rumors but they are largely unsubstantiated.

I hope they make the rest of the cast.

Looking up anime convention information reminds me... About two years ago the local anime con's theme was End of the World. While taking suggestions, someone (forget who) suggested a mushroom cloud with anime stuff all around. Let me get this straight... you want me to draw a mushroom cloud, and this is a Japanese animation convention? I told them that was a generally terrible idea. You can see why this isn't fine, right?

For the record, in art for the convention, in the last two years I've tried to make a conscious effort to avoid drawing: guns, scantily clad people, and, I guess with the above, atomic bomb imagery. That leaves a lot left to draw, so not missing out too much I should hope.

I am going through MS Paint Adventures (Homestuck).

What the hell is this?

It's awesome.

How do I explain...

It's a story format that could work no where else except online. You're a kid doing random inventory puzzle shit you can click through really fast, and suddenly the story goes haywire and it's like you're in the Matrix. It's also quite funny at moments. If you liked RubyQuest, I think you'd like this too. I reiterate, skimming the beginning is fine.

I've only reached the End of Act II! I don't understand where this is going!! But it's pretty cool!!1 I'm kind of baffled, but I like this feeling.

Belately, FMA final chapter: http://www.onemanga.com/Full_Metal_Alchemist/108/

I WAS SATISFIED. :)

I admit, I loved the first half of the first season of the FMA anime for the shiny, the new, and the great pacing. Second season, not so much. With the manga, I realized how much I loved seeing all the side characters keep coming back over the course of the it's run. PEOPLE ARE NOT FORGOTTEN. THEY RETURN AND ARE BADASSED. IF NOT RETURN, AT LEAST THEY ARE REMEMBERED AND AFFECT THE STORY. And most of the time they read like real characters and not simple plot devices! For me, it's super cool that it feels like the mangaka cared about all the characters and wanted to give everyone a "storyline" in a way, even if it's small compared to the overall plot. And the pacing of the series is gold. I'm glad it ended now and not, like, chapter 300.

Yaaaaaaaaayyyyyy for good writing THUMBS UP THE END.

More like Skies of Fail, right.

Did they switch translators? The Tokyopop translator failed in a huge way for the 4th novel of the Twelve Kingdoms series. ANN forum and 12K comm noted that chapter 63 in the original is missing from Tokyopop's version. Missing pages... LAMESAUCE.

TP's translator also called Hourin male? Hourin is a girl. grendelity: "Any 12K fan worth their salt knows the kirin naming system."

I know that Tokyopop is having financial issues, so I guess quality is dropping with that. :( You know, I suspect they'd get more readers if they just slapped a kirin on the covers. "Hello! Unicorns! Buy it!" Sales problems, solved?

---

Aaah, any 12K fans out there, what do you know about the kirin of the Hou Kingdom (the kingdom Shoukei came from)? The one that was apparently killed by the rebellion. There should be a new ranka growing, right? But there hasn't been a new one growing in the last three years for that kingdom, per the discussion Kyou-ou had. ...Was Hourin really killed? :|a Conspiracy theories wanted.

Last two pages of FMA (everrrr) got leaked.

( END OF MANGA SPOILERS )

"KH:BBS" is starting to look like "Kingdom Hearts: Babies" to me.

This post is Twitter-sized, but I feel like spamming the f-list instead. Hi!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DNRg6pdNeE

"Thaaaat is pretty much how i've always wanted a 3d modeling program to work."

AMAZING.

Fullmetal Alchemist chapter 107!!

Really good chapter! Aaah! And the next/LAST(??) chapter next month is rumored to be a huge 150 pages. I love everything about it. ( for spoilers )
---

Also, Neil Gaiman being used as a "political football"? And the Star-Tribune failing.

Since I joined Sabra La Tau, I made a batch of Taiki icons.



( 17-year-old Taiki )
ETA: 6/8/10, added a few more.
6/30/2010, changed a few things around, file names may be inconsistent with their numbers above.

Things I've been doing the last week:
- Went to a friend's birthday party! There was hummus, and I love hummus.
- Saw KICK-ASS wait I already mentioned it. Enjoyed it enough that I'll mention it yet again!
- DERP, RAGNAROK ONLINE, DERP holy cow Goats are really, really good zeny. (Holy goats!) "2mil per hour" kind of good.
- More RO.
- Kirin GET in Sabra.
- Mimicking screencap-style icons lol. I'll post these if/when I make more. Panic!
- Must make more icons

I had a Pokemon and VK dream last night. ...I should get Heart Gold, shouldn't I? A thingie that can double as a pedometer!

Hey, hey! The movie Kick-Ass was awesome, go see it! A good comic book movie.

Anime Detour 2010 was, for lack of other words, memorable!

I didn't really take any photos of cosplayers. :X Sadly, the dealer's room was very sparse this year, though I did buy a few goodies:

- Chrono Crusade vol 1
- YnM "best of" art collection/prints
- Trinity Blood wallscroll even though I don't know the series, I just wanted something pretty for my wall
- Okami fanart print from Artist Alley
- Some mug from Artist Alley.

( phone-resolution room photos )

After reading belindabird's entry on the difficulties of finding people of similar interests, I realized I haven't been posting much fandom-related stuff on my own LJ recently because I'm kind of shy or something about letting people and RL friends see how much of a fangirl retard I am for various things. ...Which is silly!! Friends are cool and tolerant people and if someone wants to judge me on my hobbies and interests, well, that's okay! Amorphous internet-judges we can talk about other cool things at other places.

So, uh, I guess my new resolution: post moar and be less self-conscious.

STARTING WITH: Vampire Knight. \o/ \o/ \o/ <--Arms in the air!

sagakure scanslated Headmaster Cross's bonus chapter the other day! It has backstory and background info and begins with Cross trying to explain to the tiny Kiryuu twins why he loves taking photos so much. This Extra is full of derp and adorable, including and not limited to Yuuki's mother Juuri giving Cross-of-the-past a roundhouse kick to the head.
( lj-cut for spoilers )

HEE, and yoinking the link from halcyonjazz's post, mangaka Chrono Nanae (Vassalord, Peacemaker Kurogane) just watched Sherlock Holmes and drew fanart for it dawww.

Okaaay LJ what did you do to my account settings? I looked at it today and realized it wasn't set to email me on replies to any of my comments or posts in communities. THE THINGS I PROBABLY MISSED.

That said, giving people the option of getting up to 240 icons is waaaaaaoooo.

I think I was acting crabby last night, sorry gang. Didn't mean to be a buzzkill right after movie.

But, How to Train Your Dragon was FABULOUS. Just the kind of dragon movie that should exist!

This is one of the most low-life things ever:

Girl Sent to a Fake Prom. You might have heard it on the news before - a girl who wanted to bring her girlfriend to the prom and wear a tux. The school freaks out and cancels the prom. Then they set up a new one - but send her and seven other people to a "fake" one while the rest of the school partied at a secret location.

...What kind of fucking school is this?

More articles via google.

Happy April Fool's, rinkhals 8) Note here: Huge Success. That was more, terrible writing than I've done in a few years.

And on a different topic, Friday Gang continued the Bad Disaster Movie Marathon with 2012, which was made even worse because we watch and enjoyed Sherlock Holmes right before. bitterlotus you were right!!! 2012 was so bad that it was a cancer-causing agent.

( SPOILERS but do you really care about Disaster Movie X? )

2 out of 2 movies contained a moose. Or maybe it was elk. WHATEVER, MEESE DEATH COUNT: 2+

http://www.wimp.com/singlelady/

...CUTEST vid involving the Single Ladies song. Oh my God I love that kid.

Dad: "You're not a single lady, buddy."
Kid: *his face starts to fall*
Dad: "...No no, yeah you are, yeah you are--"

bawwww

"I'm a horrible father."

An astounding amount of work this weekend. Why?! It's Sunday it should be slow! Tears.

Friday was good! Friday Gang watched and MST3K'd that movie KNOW1NG with Nicolas Cage I bought a few weeks ago, and I made soup. Next disaster movie on the agenda: 2012 if someone gets it. I'll probably buy it for my dad anyway since he's a fan of end of the world predictions and Nostradamus and stuff. Then yesterday I went to a friend's bday party after work, it was very nice to hang with people I haven't seen since Halloween.

In other news, I dropped Yuzuriha from CFUD the other day. One of the things I'll miss most: sporadically making invisible tags for Inuki in my replies [like so] that you had to highlight to see. I just liked that they were there, even if people didn't normally notice. Did it less and less as time when on because there's just so many ways you can say "puppy goes here".

I made Taiki fanart. Don't judge meeee. It is a boring, static headshot with girly long hair.

On another similar topic, my worst fear for the series since it's been on hiatus for so loooong is if Gyousou had died off-screen and Taiki had to choose a new King. Huge letdown. But where could he be? ;w;

xxxHolic chp 204: ( :O )

Is there a list of Twelve Kingdoms translations of terms/names+meanings? I finally read the Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Wind novel (aka Taiki's year in the 12K), and I found my self liking the localization of the text but wishing there were translation notes. Example:

- "Peace-King" of Tai, since the character for "Tai" is peace, correct? That's cool. Same with Ever-King of En, Glory-King of Kei.

I also want to know what characters make up "t'ao-t'ieh" (aka the toutetsu Gouran). I think I prefer the Chinese flavor the spelling t'ao-t'ieh gives lol.

Reading the novel, it's a bit more clear to the readers that Taiki's choice of making Gyousou king was A-OK (as compared to the anime). I still go AHAHA a little at Shouryuu and Enki playing jerks to teach Taiki that things are fine dude.

Disclaimer: My previous 12K post may have given a semi-incorrect perception of the Twelve Kingdoms series as a whole. It's Fantasy genre. 8|b

For those who have seen The Twelve Kingdoms and want to know more about DAT CLIFFHANGER with Taiki forgetting everything and returning to Japan, I strongly recommend reading Demon Child by Fuyumi Ono, part of The Twelve Kingdoms series. It takes place about 7 years after his return to Japan and what happened during that time. Online translation text.

Since I read this all day yesterday at work, have a review/summary and spoiler post!


Some background: Demon Child was actually published first! What I love is the author has obviously set up the logistics of her fantasy world, and decided to make a story based in her universe without revealing too much... the result is a really nice tease, and kinda freaky.

The story starts with the day a 10 year-old boy named Takasato Kaname, aka Taiki, got spirited away from his backyard by a strange, disembodied arm waving to him. Then it jumps to a teacher-in-training Hirose-sensei who arrived to his Alma Mater. In his class is the 17 year-old Takasato, who all the students ignore/are scared of because people who bullied/teased/went against him somehow has ended up injured or dead. The rest of the book follows Hirose as he tries to piece together how the deaths are happening and what Takasato might be. He feels a kinship with his student who longs to return to the world he was spirited away to, comparing it with his own "world" Hirose saw when he almost died from illness as a child.

Takasato can almost remember things, but gets frustrated. He senses he was happy there, once, and tries to paint the things he remembers. Looking at photographs of places gives him nostalgia because they seem familiar. He comes to the conclusion that things would have been better if he had never returned from being "spirited away", because of all the DEATH that happens.

In a subplot, we have a "ghost woman" appearing all over Japan asking people if they've seen the "ki" before disappearing in front of them. The hunt is on!!

What surprised me the most about the book is how dark things got. Fair warning, this book reads 90% HORROR. Strange dog-like shadows appearing around Takasato, disembodied arms near him, rumors of "The curse of Takasato" goes around, a teacher who actually tried to help him dies, students try to lynch him, the media catches wind of the story when the body count rises exponentially at the school and hound him, parents ditch him, some otaku fanatic classmate tries to start "Takatoism" saying that those who befriend Takasato will be free from harm (half right) but then is crushed by a train, and finally Hirose tries way too hard to put himself and Takasato in the same category and reveals his own "ugly ego". It's not a very flattering view of humanity! The author is very pessimistic about people.

On Hirose-sensei: this character is almost like the precursor to the Sugimoto character in the anime. She's very loosely based on some of the things that happen with Hirose—he's the one who gets the Are you a friend or an enemy of the King? question. However he is A LOT MORE TOLERABLE and very likable because he's trying his best to help Takasato. Though he views himself as "special" or "different" from other people much like Sugimoto did, he's more subtle about it.

( end spoilers, and a body count rundown for the morbid )

I am bored. The sadness of having my weekends in the middle of the week while everyone is at work/school.

I had leftover Hawaiian pizza for breakfast and now lunch. (Yum)

Now have some amaaaazing unicorn drawings from when I was like 8 years old. THE SPARKLES.

Other news: Fullmetal Alchemist! Hurling towards a conclusion!! wow

The Hollywood Video near my place is going out of business!

tlamonkey and I stopped by there Wednesday for discounted movies, heck yeah. 3 for $15 on everything except new movies. I got the Host, Slither, the first disc of Tru Blood (first two eps) so I can check out since I've heard good things about it. I got that disaster movie KNOW1NG with Nicolas Cage (which was actually $3 despite being new, lol, it's that "good"). Dragged my lap top to work and watched it in the background as I did stuff. I might go back and get Star Trek (2009).

KNOW1NG spoilers: ( Sp0il3rs )

Pretend you're a robot. Now pretend that robot is also a unicorn. A robot unicorn that has to collect stars and fairies, and will explode into a fiery ball of pain if you don't hit the [x] button in time, while running in a magic rainbow and purple land, while a catchy song plays.

You get Robot Unicorn Attack
My High Score: 58,416 points
My LOW Score: 594

YEAAAAH GET AS LOW AS YOU CAN!!

Always by Erasure's music vid for the curious.