Okay, wow. This week felt extremely long. And this post is a day late too. I’ll explain why after the cut. Anyways, I didn’t do much this week. I was sort of trying to get back to the feel of going to school which was hard because I was abnormally moody and tired this week. Haha.
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My computer crashed on Monday and I only got it back a few hours ago. Basically, I didn’t have a computer of my own for a whole week and my Dad’s laptop is too slow to do any multi-tasking. So, I decided on a series I’ll talk about later and watched it all week pretty obsessively. Mainly because I needed something to cheer me up and motivate me to do some studying. But I’ll get to that later.
Anyways, the crash caught me by surprise. Monday morning I boot up my PC and BAM! I’m greeted with a blue screen of death. The only way around that was Safe Mode but when I got there, some of my files vanished. At the least, I saved a few soundtracks and all my photos. The bad? I lost two of the stories I was working on. In total, about 60 pages and two months of my time. As an author, this really really got me down. I’m still not over it. I can’t bring myself to write anything at the moment because of that incident. Luckily, there’s anime.
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Major
This rant is bound to be a mess. I’ll try to be coherent so hang on tight.
Major is a baseball anime series that’s still airing. It was the only other (than Oofuri) baseball series that caught my eye so I decided to watch it to entertain me for the week. I ended up devouring 66 episodes in the space of five days. That’s the fatest since, uh, well, never. I never watched a series as quickly as this. Which means something, I think. Anyways, just goes to show I ended up falling hard for this show. It’s too bad I can’t find anyone else willing to fangirl with me about this series. Is there anyone out there watching this too? I’d love to know I’m not the only one obsessing.
Since I don’t see anyone else talking about this one, I’ll give a short summary. The whole series is basically about Honda Goro’s (later Shigeno Goro) life with baseball from Kindergarden (age 5) all the way to when he goes pro. The anime is divided into arcs that are basically parts of Goro’s life in a chronological order. The first season starts off with Goro still in Kindergarden living alone with his pro pitcher father, Honda Shigeharu. By the time we get to the latter part of the second season, Goro is in high school.
What stood out to me about Major was that we’re going through Goro’s entire life. In most series, we mostly just get their time in High School or Junior High or whatever. In Major, we get to see it all and through that, we really the character grow more and more. I’m current about a fourth through with season three and, at this point, I can say that nine-year old Goro (from the latter part of season one) is probably my favorite. I swear, he was an awesome nine-year old. I’m sorry Kairi, Goro beat you by miles.
The other thing that stood out to me was the characters. Since Goro’s is pretty much here and there and basically everywhere, not all the characters stick around. The same with real life. You meet some people, get along with them, but eventually you’ll part with them. Of course, some characters do stick around and that’s the fun part. Well, it’s also a sad thing if you grew to like a certain character in one arc but he’ll never appear in the next. Sometimes, a character that got two lines in one arc showed up in another with a very important role. Okay, actually, it happened one time but you get my drift right? I love character development so watching a series like this is perfect for me. Of course, there are certain characters that don’t leave and play a part in all the arcs (up to where I am at least). Namely Shimizu and Toshiya. I’m thinking these two are going to stay for the whole lenght of the series.
First off, Sato Toshiya. Toshiya’s and Goro’s relationship is probably the first reason I got so far. Toshiya was basically Goro’s first (baseball) friend whom he met when he was just five years old. Toshi’s the same age. They are the best of friends and best of rivals as well. Up until Goro went into the Little League, Toshiya and him were great friends but afterwards they became rivals from different teams. I have a thing for rivalry relationships. They’re intense and I love it. But, I loved it even more when we got to the High School arc and Goro and Toshiya formed a battery for a while. These were the greatest episodes. Toshiya’s wearing the apron in this relationship what with Goro’s dorky manliness. But Toshiya’s really the only person who can truly stand up to Goro and put him in place. Oh yeah, perfect wife. I’m loving this more and more. Then the even better episodes came when Goro announces he’s quitting Kaido U. high if he defeats the varsity team because he wants to challenge Kaido rather than be on their side. Toshiya gets extremely depressed because he wanted to go to Koshien with his dear dear husbandfriend and because he thinks Goro betrayed him. Very understandable. I’d be pissed to. Of course, Goro manages to show Toshiya that he repects him greatly but for the same reason, Goro wants to challenge Toshi saying ‘If I’m with all the strong people, playing baseball won’t be a challenge anymore’ . Very cool on your part there Goro! Toshi cheers up but I haven’t seen him for over ten episodes now. I’m going to cry. Sigh. It’s too bad the canon pairing in this is Goro and Shimizu (a girl Goro knew since the Little League days, she was a teammate)
Kokoroe by Road of Major, Major First OP
Last comment; I love the OPs in this anime even though they are spoilerific and repetitive. But what I love the most is that ED from the second season with Toshi with Goro fanservice. Ah ~ I love being a fangirl.
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Axis Power Hetalia
I think everyone knows about this up and coming short anime series based off the totally popular webcomic of the same name right?! Ahem. I was going to just watch the series because it’s looks cute and has awesome seiyuu in it but a little push from a friend to read the original and now I’m frikken hooked. Thanks a lot Rene! So, I went read practically all the scanlations available and fangirled about everytime hour I wasn’t watching Major. Now I feel as if I fangirled more over Hetalia than Oofuri. Shit. That would make Hetalia my epitome of fangirling! Of course, I’m not officially announcing that until the anime. If the anime successfully makes me fangirl like a maniac then I’m going to seriously reconsider Oofuri’s position in my rankings. This meaning! All you people who haven’t read Hetalia and like bishies, chibis, cuteness and overall awesomeness I highly recommend to go read this NOW. Just google the livejournal community of it.
APH: The Sex Appeal contest
Moving on, I do believe this is the first time I can’t decided on a favorite character. Seriously, I can’t. I love all the character/countries now. I don’t geography’s ever been this fun. Though, I already liked the subject in the first place. But seriously, I feel like I’ve learned a bunch of things I wouldn’t have looked up otherwise. We get a lot of historical facts from this … which actually makes me wonder how much of the RAWs I’ll be able to catch. Thank goodness I read the strips. But back to the characters/countries …
There’s a load of them. I can’t remember them all but I remember the ones I love and … well, good hand of the countries represented in this comic. Like Italy who’s just completely and totally useless but oh-so-cute. One of my favorite strips with him is the whole grenade story. Beware of Italien grenades! Who knows when they’ll explode … Then there’s Japan, my love for Japan just can’t be explained. He’s cute. And Germany who’s not much of a teddy bear character but is a great straight-man. But hey! Italy and Germany are cute.
Heta Suta
Then UK (or England, whatever!) who’s a complete package arriving with tsundere and onii-san mode. Next, France who is after everyone’s asses, shows up almost always naked and is super flashy. France and UK? Yes, yes and yes. And of course, America (US, not Canada!) who caught my eye immediately because he’s a megane character. He loves burgers like Maya, always watches horror movies even though it gives him nightmares and he always comes up with the stupidest of ideas. The condom exchange with Russia was absolutely priceless. America’s and UK’s relationship is totally adorable too.
Next up, Russia and his childish evilness. Seriously though, Russia’s just awesome. Russia and Lithuania are love love love! I love those two. They won me over after I read the Outsourcing series when Lithuania became America’s meido for a while and Russia came to visit America saying ‘Take care of Lithuania. He is my EX after all” with a scary face. It was totally priceless.
The Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia trio is great too. Latvia sort of reminds of Mihashi minus the chicken face. Ah! And there’s Poland with his girly accent! He talks like “Like so, it was totally cute!” and has a lot of pictures of him in a girl’s school uniform. Poland and Lithuania are great. I just love Russia more.
Then, Sweden and Finland whom I think is my favorite pairing. Or maybe Japan and Greece? Ah, Greece and his curly hair. And I can’t ignore Germany and Italy can I? Or Chibitalia and Holy Roman Empire?! Aah ~ This is way too hard! I’ll continue with the indivuals now.
Next up, Switzerland and his guns. Oh man, he so totally pwns. Hungary (a girl!) who’s totally a yaoi fangirl. Austria who’s just a cute poser. Ah ~ he acts so cool. China with his -aru and age of godly value (4000+ years)! Korea who thinks he invented everything. I love how he calls China and Japan ‘aniki’ though. Holy Roman Empire the too-pure-boy who likes Chibitalia thiking he’s a girl. And-! Oh my goodness, I think I went through all the ones I really love. Oh WAIT! WOUPS!
I forgot Canada.
… Ahaha … Well wow, he really is invisible. -coughs- Stupid me. I forgot the very country I live in! Which I’m saying because Quebec-kun doesn’t officially exists. No fair. Hong Kong gets a character but Quebec-kun had a measly mini-cameo. Sigh. Anyways! Yes! Canada! Canada who is invisible and forgotten! Canada who is always mistaken for America! Canada who is just … Canada! I’m happy he’s a megane chara too. Yay!
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And before I reach 2k words, I’ll end my long rant here. I’ve still got a bunch of things to settle with on this computer. Mainly, re-downloading the anime episodes I’ve lost. Luckily it’s just some seven episodes from a few different series.
Since I lack the ability to watch 66 episodes in 5 days, it’ll be a wonder if I ever pick up Major.
As a Geography junkie (though I doubt that’ll have anything to do with liking the show or not), am totally looking forward to Axis Powers Hetalia as well ;P
Lol… I went to check out the webmanga and yes, I love it!!! A great fan of political jokes. Thanks for your o-susume!
I love Major as well!!! I’m currently straining my eyes out watching Season 4. Ugghh!! I love Goro and Toshiya even more