Ficcie attempts

I've been a fanfiction reader for as long as I became anime/manga fans. So perhaps..... 10 years!! All that time, I've became a good reader, giving reviews for the story I like, and lurk here and there. Basically, I read fanfiction to have something more, more than the manga have provide to us. That's why, I choose the fic that has similar plot with the original manga.

So.... After lurking and reading countless of fanfictions, I finally have the courage to actually write one XD

Strawhat Theater: Marchen Time

And since I'm currently obsessed with One Piece, I decided to make one. This is a remake of one of the creator's extras: Marchen Time. Basically, a parodi of famous fairy tales, but with OP charas. XD A very funny extra. My favourite.

doodle doodling Doodles.....

I've always want to be able to draw a decent pics. But... up untill now, I still can't do it. Then I know the word 'doodle'.

The word 'doodle' (in my own perception) means drawing something out of boredome and didn't do details on the pic.

Well... basically, that's what I did when waiting for my patients, I doodled!! XD I know... I can't even draw something that could be categorized as 'details', but whatever XD here they are:



a piece of fanart for my beloved manga: ONE PIECE!! I tried to draw Chopper (low right corner) for the first time here. ^_^ not bad I would say hahahhaha



Luffy and Zoro. I must admit, I followed a magazine cover (for hair and poses) here, but of course I draw my own scetch.



Nami and Robin. Robin is soooo difficult to draw. UGH!! >_<

Another Chopper. Again, I followed a magazine cover with my own scetch. His hooves is the easiest to draw XD



And the pic of myself XD hauhauahuahaa (narsis dikit boleh donk....... XD)

Soul Resonance in Soul Eater

Recently I’ve been following new series titled ‘Soul Eater’. At first glance, I imidiately dislike the art, thanks to Ohkubo’s ‘unique’ style (if not ugly XD). But, learning from my expirience with One Piece, I tried to follow the story instead. And just like I’ve guessed, I really like the story.

The story itself took place on earth but with different environtment. In this world, there were people who was born to be ‘meister’ or technichian’ who possesed great soul wavelenght and people who was born to be ‘weapon’ who possesed ability to transform into any kind of weapon. We would focused ourselves into three pairs of tech-weapon (Maka-Soul, Blackstar-Tsubaki, Kid-Liz&Patty), students in special school called Shibusen with Shinigami-sama as the chief.

Apparently, sometime in the past, a great evil, called Kishin, was born because a tech ate ‘good’human souls in seeking power in order to overcome his own fears. The school was invented to avoid such thing being reborned and at the same time, to train young tech and weapon to prevent someone/something to become Kishin. These techs need to collect 99 ‘bad’ souls and a witch soul to turned their weapon into ‘death sycthe’ so that the weapon could be used by Shinigami-sama.

In this story, pair of tech-weapon was choosed by their soul wavelenght and wheter they could match their soul wavelenght. That means not all tech could change weapon as they like and vice versa. In other point of view, as we could also see from our 3 main protagonist, this also means whether they could match their behaviour. It seems that those pair really understand, trust, and could read each other’s mind. These also made their interactions really interesting to follow (especially Blackstar-Tsubaki’s and of course Maka-Soul’s). ^_^

The story is a combination between adventure-action and comedy, with a little bit of romance. It’s just that sometime I feel the author would put the comedy in ‘wrong’ places. I’ve lost count of how many I nearly fall from my chair just because the ‘tension’ scenes suddenly changed to ‘comedic’ scenes and returned >_<. And there’re also a lot of fan services that I feel unnecessarily disturbing for me <_<. But for the story, I can tolerate that. Ah, on the side note, somehow, Maka’s VA is a little bit too flat. Perhaps since this is the first time she played as VA. Eventhough, you could ‘hear’ that she is improving. ^_^

Overall, Soul Eater is very interesting to follow, and will be on my list hopefully till the end of the story. I really don’t want to get dissapointed like my expirience with School Rumble (a great story but failed at the very end, regretfully).

One Piece Movie 9: Episode Chopper Plus

Okay, this OP movie really made me curious. Because eversince its first performance, all I heard are compliments. That’s why I feel really exited when I finally get ahold of this movie.

The story started with the appearance of a word ‘if’. I was chuckled when I saw that. It’s as if the animators already warned OP fans to not complain later on since this movie was an ‘if’ story. Then we saw many wanted posters and prologs to explain the situation in One Piece world, a very good start for nonregular OP watchers.

The story, as explained in the title, was about Chopper recruitment/ retell of Drum arc, but without Vivi as in the original story. Instead, we have Robin, Franky, and Thousand Sunny in it. But unlike movie 8 (the retell of Arabasta arc), this time, they managed to made a great story and somehow managed to fit in all those characters without, we watchers, felt akward. For example, Robin obviously played Vivi’s part, but you’ll saw her as Robin herself without out-of-characterness. And when you saw Franky or Sunny or Wapol’s brother, you won’t saw them as something that shouldn’t be there.

About the pace, this movie had good pace. I mean, you didn’t feel rushed when watching it. Eventhough I still felt that some scene was skipped, but remember, this is an ‘if’ story XD

The animation used what we called Movie 6’s style. Personally I didn’t like it. It looked like the characters were ‘messy’, but it was good in term of consistency and the combination with the 3D backgrounds graphics. Looked at the snow, forests, and of course the ‘sakura’. It was totally awesome!! Beautifull!! Plus the sounds and BGMs were perfect. Notice the sound made when the characters stepped on the snow. Perfect!!

Still I’m a bit dissapointed to see that Robin didn’t get as much fight as Zoro and Franky. Yeah, I know that she played Vivi, but if they could made the extra characters feels all right, they should be able to add extra fight for her isn’t it?? -_- But, that’s, of course, just a personal complain XD

Overall, I would say that this movie was a success, especially when you compared it with Movie 8. But, personally I still prefer a ‘new story’ kind of movie instead a ‘remake with extra story’ kind of movie, and I prefer Movie 7’s art style (exclude the ‘boing-boing’ effect of course), so my favourite OP movie untill now is still Movie 7 followed by Movie 5.

Now I can’t wait to see Movie 10, since it will have ‘new story’ and from I saw from the trailer, it will be awesome ^_^

War of Spirits in Kiba

Ah… it’s been a long time since my last anime review isn’t it?
Okay, actually I watched this anime several months ago. But I haven’t had any chance to write my review. So, this time I’ll write a short review according to what I still remembered.

Kiba is a unique story with unique athmosphere. It was started with the main character Zed who lived in a poluted city, where there was always dark since the light can’t shine through the poluted air and the people need to wear mask when breathing. Zed never like to live in the city. He also always dreamt about a spirit who asked him to go to other world. That’s why Zed tend to kick doors, because he tought that when he kicked a door, he could find the alternate world and be free. And because of that, he always chased away by police.

Zed has a friend named Noa, who despite Zed’s strange behaviour, still love to be his friend. Noa even remembered Zed’s birthday and gave him a present, white feather, that represent freedom. At his birthday, Zed also visited his beloved mother, who for some reason looked like has lost her mind, in the hospital. When Zed showed her his present, the mother seemed to remember something. Then after that things started to get more complicated for Zed.

A strange behavioured teacher want to kill him, but he was saved by his mother who apparently could use somekind of magic, and somehow recognize the assasin as someone from other world. Before all of those things could be explained though, Zed was chased away by police and just at the nick of time, the spirit that always in his dream showed up and asked him to follow the spirit through a magical hole.

Then Zed arrived at the alternate world, where there were blue sky, fresh air, and real wind blew. Then Zed started his adventure in the alternate world, made new friends (Roia and Miki), get involved in war of the spirits that has to do with the country’s politics, and even have to fight Noa (who also being drawn to the alternate universe).

All in all… the story’s idea is quite fresh. About spirits that could be controlled by the wielder, much like mecha/pokemon/digimon thing, but in more fascinating way. I also love the character design and awesome spirits design. The animation’s colouring also has wide variety. We can really feel the difference between a dark poluted city to more beautifull lively city.

Unfortunately, somehow the author failed to complete several of the mini arc in a satisfiying end. Not to say that the supposed to be main arc’s climacs being rushedly solved in an unsatifisfying ending. For the music, I think, this anime didn’t have any music that stands out.

At the end, it’s an interesting story to watch.

Bodyguards in Seirei no Moribito

This is the latest anime I watched. And I must say, despite being categorized as drama-action with no humor at all, I still like this anime very much. The things that outstanded this anime are the animation quality and music (BGMs). The animation is very smooth with beautiful variation of colours, while the music is simply beautiful (I even bought the BGM cd and I didn’t regret it ^_^).

The setting is quite similar with our earth, but it’s not earth. Their ‘earth’ where people live is called Sagu. This world has an alternate universe where spirits live called Nayug. This two world live side by side and support each other. In several places, called ‘knot’, people with ‘trained’ sensibility could communicate with the spirits.

The scene oppened with the return of a Kanbal female bodyguard called Balsa to Yogo empire after 2 years journey. She is very famous for her spear skill that she was called ‘the Spear Wielder Balsa’. She went on a journey to save eight lives in return for the live she had killed (later on we will know that she actually compensate her saviour’s debt). Actually, there’s another reason for her gone on journey. 2 years ago, she had fight with her childhood friend, Tanda, and that’s also the reason why now she doesn’t want to kill anybody in order to save her client’s live.

When she is walking to enter the city (crossing a bridge), she saw a parade of the Emperor’s second prince. As a culture in Yogo, common people may not lift their head when a royal family cross the street. But Balsa claimed that she is not a Yogo people and keep walking. Suddenly the animal that puliing the cart gone one berserk and the cart fell down to the river below. Seing this, Balsa decided to help. And to her surprised, this prince is still a kid (11 years old boy).

She managed to help the prince, and then continue her walking into the town. However, The Emperor’s second queen (the prince’s mother) summon her to the palace. The queen asked Balsa to protect the child (Prince Chagum) and immidiately escape from the city, because The Emperor wants to killed the child. The reason is because Chagum was possesed with a spirit that could bring drought to the country. After several negotiation, Balsa agreed to flee with the kid and it turned out that Chagum is her eighth client. And so the story continue and we could see how Balsa protect Chagum, the truth behind the spirit that posesed him, Balsa and Chagum relationship (mother-son relationship), political issue with ridiculous rules, etc.

When I first read the review made by Animonster, I imediatelly like this anime. And despite it’s said to be a ‘children’ story, I still have difficulties in understanding the plot. Yeah, my simple brain just could not accept difficult stories. But I could be ensured that the ending must be a ‘happy ending’. And it is, eventhough I felt it a bit pussed a little, but a ‘happy end’ nonetheless ^_^

Btw, there’s a little bit of romance problem between Balsa and Tanda. It’s very small that if you didn’t give any attention, you wouldn’t notice it. But Chagum noticed it XD Anyway I really like the fact that finally Balsa accept Tanda’s offer, eventhough, apparently Tanda have to wait another time before she returned XD aww… Tanda is such a handsome, patient, smart man. Don’t dissapoint him will you Balsa?? XD

Cosplay Party at Animonster Sound Aishiteru’08

Animonster Sound Aishiteru is somekind like gathering event for Indonesian anime/manga/game lovers. It is held by Animonster (Indonesian anime/manga magazine) once a year. Eversince the first time they held this kind of gathering, I never been able to attend because of my study. Now, finally I could attend this event. This time, it was held in Jakarta. So, I spared my time, and went to Jakarta. Actually, there were other events such as bento making contest, chocolate making contest, and karaoke (Japanese songs) contest. But, I didn’t have that much time to see all of that, so I just went and see the Cosplay party and contest.

I only attend the 2nd day event. I brought my camera (err… my sis’ camera actually XD), wore my One Piece T-shirt, then along with my sis and cousins, we drove to the place. It was held in Jakarta City Centre (JaCC). After all our effort in surviving those traffic jam (the thing I hate the most when traveling around Jakarta), finally I managed to get to the place. Actually I was quite surprised to see that the stage is very small for such an event. But that’s not a problem, since now I could witness those cosplayers with my very own eyes.

And not wasting more time, I took pictures of those cosplayers. Sadly, with my limited knowledge of anime/manga and especially games, I couldn’t recognize most of them. Anyway, here are some pics I made:

As I’ve guessed before, there were so many Naruto cosplayers. Since I’m not a fan of Naruto, I only took pics of group that have my fav chara cosplayer: Hinata.



Another favourite series is Bleach.



Kyaa!!! Captain Hitsugaya!! >o<



Other than that, I also saw several Death Note cosplayers





Ooh… my fav chara from Fate/Stay Night: Rin Tohsaka and Saber. Actually Saber-chan hasn’t finished with her costume yet, but I pushed her to pose for me =P Sorry Saber-chan!



This Gundam cosplayer really amazed me. He could hardly moved because that costume and even need his friend to guide him when walking. But on the other hand, he was very popular among children ^_^



Finally, after roaming around that place, I could find at least one (just ONE can you imagine it?!) Tenma Tsukamoto from School Rumble.



Sadly, I couldn’t find any One Piece cosplayer. NOT EVEN ONE!! I was so sad… but at least, I could find one guy who also wore OP T-shirt just like me. Actually my sis said that she saw another girl wearing OP T-shirt. But I couldn’t find her to take a pic.



From tokusatsu side, Kamen Rider!! Actually there were 4 or 5 Kamen Rider there. But because of their costumes, I believe they were sweating heavily inside it. So all of them already put off their masks and were drinking or simply cooling themselves. Lucky enough, one of them still want to pose for me. ^_^ Btw, I really like their costume. (Edit: He was cosplaying Faiz Axel Form. Thx anti_snake)



From sentai series. Despite I couldn’t recognize what series this girls cosplaying, I really love their costume details. (Edit: GaoWhite from Gaoranger and MegaYellow from Megaranger. Thx anti_snake)



I think, this guy cosplaying something very familiar to me. But I couldn’t remember what the anime series is. (Edit: apparently he was cosplaying a vilain from 21st century boys. Thx Chain)



From old series, Sailor Jupiter was there.



And Cardcaptor Sakura.



And Saint Saiya.



This Goku cosplayer’s 'hair' must be very heavy, judging by the way he walked ^_^;



Nodame and Chiaki from Nodame Cantabile was performing, while the other wait for their turn.



Look at this, I kept smiling despite a death God stood beside me XD



These are other pics I took that consist of several characters from different series at once, and series I couldn't recognize. But their costumes are amazing!! ^_^

Mm... very cool looking guy with 2 guns. He looked like Vash the stampede, but his hair was not 'standing'. (Edit: he was cosplaying Dante from Devil may cry. Thx Majek)



Pretty cool gothic look.



This one too...



Someone from Vampire Hunter??



The kid from Rurouni Kenshin, Capt. Hitsugaya (ooohh!! >o<), and a very cute gothic lady.

A very beautiful Dark angel.



Cool costume there. From a certain games perhaps?? (Edit: They are Mitsurugi from Soul Calibur, someone from Dead or Alive 4. Thx Neko)



The hairdo was very amazing. Really.



Cute Robo-girl.



Students from a certain School anime??



This one too...



His sword was very heavy that he didn't bother to lift it ^_^;



This one is also very cool. From a certain game??



I was surrounded by gothic ladies!!



A cool girl, Kon, and the Robo-girl.



Cute Kitty ladies. From Tokyo Mew Mew perhaps?



I only recognize Ichigo here. ^_^;



Cool costumes!! Must be from games.



This beautiful gothic lady was very popular amongs photographers ^_^



Well... that's all pic I have. I wonder wheter I could attend the next year event. Seing there's no OP cosplayer this time, My sis and I were burned to wear any OP costume next time. Hahahhaha XD

One Piece Treasure

Finally after some time, I managed to grab myself a copy of Treasure!! I know it’s late, but better late than never isn’t it? XD I’m so happy to have this book. And this is my first time holding a ‘Japanese comic Magazine’ in my hand. Eventhough it’s thick, it’s very light. Somebody also told me that these kind of comic magazine has ‘not so good’ quality of paper and ink. Well... I agree with the ink, these magazine has ‘pink’ or ‘greeen’ pics (never knew that), but the colour spread is great, they made it in colour ^_^ But the paper are quite thick I guess, eventhough it’s rough, I would say it’s still better then our version of comic book’s paper ^_^. Ah, whatever, this is just for fans collection anyway.

So the book contents of many informations, which I couldn’t understand because I can’t read Japanese ^_^; There’re reviews of Jupms all these 10 years, events, records, interview with Oda and Mayumi Tanaka (Luffy’s VA), interview with Oda in his workplace, cross over comic between OP and Dragon Ball, etc. Arrggh!!! I must learn Japanese to understand these!! >_<

Btw, these are few scans and photos I made ^_^




The One Piece Treasure book and bonuses




This is Watsuki’s version of OP, well... my scans is bad, because I don’t want to press the book to hard againts my scanner, but you could see, his version of Robin is cool ^o^




One of my favourite bonus: postcard!!

One Piece Movie 8: Episode Alabasta

Finally, after some time, I could watch this 8th movie of One Piece. Eventhough I know that this movie got so much critics from those fans, I still couldn’t wait to watch it. And I must say……… I agree with most of the fans.

As you could already predict, this movie retells Alabasta arc. From the first day I heard about this movie, I already thinked: how can they made such a quite long arc into 2 hours movie?? And the movie itself answer my question. Everything feels rushed. So many important scenes and encounters were skipped, so many characthers weren’t there, so many improvement were made etc. No wonder so many fans feels dissapointed in this movie, including me. I so much prefer their original stories movies (like my favourites: Movie 7, of course I put aside those boing-boing thing -_-)

The story started with Vivi dreaming about her country, then suddenly skipped with Mr. Bon Clay encounter, but this time Sanji were there. They still make those ‘X’ mark thing of course, then suddenly they’re at Yuba. Yup, no Nanohana and they didn’t explain how they met Matsuge. Then suddenly they are already on top of that crab, and when Crocodile first dueled Luffy, Robin was there, watching. Then the crab managed to go to the border of Alubarna, no river and they didn’t meet the Super Duck Squad. And that’s just several example of how much they skipped things. No encounter with Dugong, Ace, Smoker and Tashigi, no Rain Base, etc. WOW…….. And not to mention the music. I mean, come on, this is a MOVIE!! How come there’s no new BGMs?? The movie feels so plain…..

But, there’s still some things that I liked though, like how they made the pics. It’s awesome!! Several screen shots are just great. Especially Zoro’s duels, OMG, it’s soo cool…….. And I must say, I like how they add things, like how Nami took off her Clima tact from Miss Double Finger, how Nami found Zoro and shook him awake, Luffy remembered Robin saved him from the sand tomb and thus rescued her from the ‘desert spada’ inside the tomb, how Robin managed to find Going Merry, etc.

Well….. overall, this movie isn’t that great, not like previous movies, but why not enjoy it just like an animated ‘other’ version of Alabasta?? At least you could still enjoy the animation quality ^_^ and as a One Piece fan, I just have to see this movie. Ah, btw, I heard that movie 9 will be a retell about Drum Kingdom but with Robin, Franky, and Sunny. *sigh* I really hope they made more original stories. But I don’t know the detail yet, cause apparently there’s some big monster involved too. Well…. We should just wait and see, shall we?? ^_^

Visit Neo Venezia in ARIA

Well well well…… it’s been a while since my last anime review isn’t it? Okay then, this time I’ll review an anime titled ARIA (both ARIA the animation and ARIA the natural). The genre would be piece-of-life drama I guess.

The story took place in a planet called Aqua, a man-made planet outside earth (which they called Man-home). As you could already guessed by the name, this planet is covered with water, thus the city is called Neo Venezia. Since it’s not earth, the wheather and the gravity are also need to be maintained by people who in charged of that. Among all of them there will be 2 people got involved in the story: Akatsuki the Salamander (who control the wheather), and Albert or Al (who control the gravity).

The main story of ARIA is about daily life of Akari Mizunashi, a young gondola rower (which is called Undine) who will also act as a tour guide. She is Alicia Florence’s apprentice, who works in Aria Company. Alicia is well known as one of the famous Three Legendary Undine Fairy. It’s been Aria company’s policy to only have 2 Undine at one time. So that mean, only Alicia (as the senior Undine) and Akari (as the junior Undine) there, plus their president. There’s a believe in Neo Venezia, that a cat with blue eyes will protect a gondola from harm. Thus every gondola company will have one cat as their president. In Neo Venezia, there’re 3 famous gondola company: Aria, Himeya, and Orange Planet. While Aria will only have 2 Undine, Himeya and Orange Planet are a big company with lots of Undine. In each company, there’s one person who is also include in Three Legendary Undine Fairy.

So basically, all episodes in Aria will tell stories around Akari and her friends: Aika S Granzchesta from Himeya, and Alice Carrol from Orange Planet. All of them are Undine apprentice, thus the story usually tells around how they practice and how they spent their holiday or just their daily activities and interaction with other people. Btw, the other Fairies are both Aika and Alice’s senior: Akira E Ferrari, and Athena Glory. These three people are apparently childhood friends, just like Akari, Aika and Alice.

Overall Aria is a nice anime, but with that kind of story, it make me bored, because there’s not much characters problem or something like that, that will thickens the plot. It’s just peacefull daily life. Eventhough of course I always pray for peacefull life for all people in this world of ours, that’s not what I want to watch in a movie/anime. But this series got their own fans, and I can’t blame them. The pictures are awesome!! And this story really made you want to visit Aqua, and enjoy the beautiful Neo Venezia, with an Undine as your guide. The anime also has great songs, that bring you peacefullness.

And for favourite character, I really like Alice Carrol with her unique personality. She is typicall smart/talented girl with difficulties to make social contact. She also sometime make her life more difficult with her own rules or something XD Other than that, her interaction with her clumsy senior Athena, is also what I always longed to see. Their interactions is by far the most amusing for me. How Athena tried her best to teach and understand her junior, and how Alice act around her seniors (who usually looked a bit harsh) but actually she really loved her senior. It’s just too cute…… <3

Anyway, overall Aria is a good anime to fill your free time ^_^

Alchemist in Busou Renkin

Time to another anime review. And this time: Busou Renkin. It’s a manga created by Nobuhiro Watsuki, the creator of the famous Rurouni Kenshin. But I must say that I like this story better because finally Nobuhiro make the female heroine as strong as the male hero and make her fight a decent fight. I still remember how I (as a worshiper of strong heroine) was upset at the fact that Kaoru Kamiya didn’t fight much despite she was a dojo owner. I mean, come on… how can that little kid (who was her pupil) got more fight than her?? She is the freakin teacher there!!

Okay, that’s enough of my rant. Anyway, the story started when a highschool boy named Mutou Kazuki saw a freaking monster (who was called Homonculus) in an abandoned building. While he was hiding, suddenly he saw a highschool girl, who later on we knew as Tsumura Tokiko, who seemed didn’t notice the monster and would be attacked. He jump from his hiding, and pushed her away, but his heart got pierced by the mosnter instead. Thus he died (typical shonen isn’t it?). But, it’s not the end of the story ^_^ Touched by Kazuki’s action, Tokiko decided to save him by replacing his heart using a Kakugane (kind of metal that could be activated as a weapon).

The next day, Kazuki who didn’t remembered what has happened thought all that as a dream. But, it weren’t a dream, as the mosnter again attacked him, and this time Tokiko apeared before him and killed the homonculus. Later she told Kazuki that she actually could killed the homonculus easily, that the other day was just her act to lure the homonculus out. ^_^; And since Kazuki already seen the homonculus, that mean he got involved in the war between alechemy warior (Tokiko was one of them)and the homonculus. There were two choices actually, fight or forget it all. Tokiko assured Kazuki to returned to his ordinary live, come back to his sister and friends. But as he is the main hero, he wouldn’t do that, instead he took the 3rd option (he made it himself)that he will fight and come back to his sister and friends.

Later on, we will see a plot that actually quite twisted. We couldn’t make a clear line between black and white. Typical Nobuhiro. We will see that the vilain actually not an exactly vilain. There’s a reason behind their act, that if we were in their position, we could also act the same. But of course there’s always options that we could choose.

Overall I quite enjoy this anime, as I already said before, Tokiko is strong and she had decent fights. Eventhough later on Kazuki is still the strongest (hey… It’s shonen afterall ^_^) The romance between Kazuki and Tokiko is already expected, but it’s still amussing to saw how their relationship grew ^_^. Other thing that make me like this story better than Kenshin is the ending. Even though, the second and third last episode make you think you’ll have the not good ending feeling, I’m glad it’s just a twist. Busou Renkin does have a happy ending, with happy-people-live happily-ever-after feel. Ah, how I really like those kind of story. ^_^

I think as Rurouni Kenshin is one of Nobuhiro’s best story, this Busou Renkin couldn’t avoid but has a ‘Kenshin scent’ here and there. For example, the theme is still want to become stronger so Kazuki could protect the people he loved especially Tokiko, and he wouldn’t sacrified anyone. Then if you see Tokiko’s character design, you could tell that she is female version of Kenshin. She even has a scar, only her scar is single and it’s across her face, her personality is different though. Other example is in one episode where Tokiko was hurt, Kazuki’s sister Mahiro bandaged her whole body, that make her looks exactly like Shisio Makoto ^o^ I couldn’t help but chuckled when I saw that. One more is that there was a Busou Renkin that looked like a katana named Sword Samurai X. ^_^

There’s thing that dissapointed me though. The OP and ED songs isn’t as great as Kenshin's. I don’t even want to hear those songs. And sometimes the Busou Renkin names just ough… disturbing. Such as Near death Happiness and Alice in Wonderland. What the H***??!! It could be named better than that >_< but then again it’s just minors. Overall it’s an enjoyable anime.

Hear the Clasic in Nodame Cantabile

I’ve just recently watch the anime version of Nodame Cantabile. And I must say, I really love this anime. I would say the genre is drama-comedy. I usually don’t like drama, but this one is some exception.

The story is about a very talented, perfectionist, and handsome Chiaki Shinichi who study in Musical College. He is well known for his talent in piano and actually he can play the violin very well too. He is taking a piano class eventhough he actually really wants to become a conductor. When he was a little kid, he saw a really talented conductor in Vienna, thus he planned to become the cundoctor’s pupil. Unfortunatelly, on his way home to Japan, the plane got a little accident, and that made him never want to ride a plane anymore.

Because one event, Chiaki got a fight with his teacher, and the teacher decide not to teach him anymore. Chiaki then got transfered under different teacher, and here, he met Noda Megumi (or Nodame), a girl who always got the lowest rank in the school, because she can’t read any partiture. The teacher managed to asked Chiaki to do piano duet with her. But, of course Nodame way of playing made Chiaki got headache. Nodame apparently play any piece in her own way: skipped notes, didn’t look at the dinamica, etc.

And as if that’s not enough, Nodame actually lived next door to Chiaki. Being a perfectionist himself, Chiaki couldn’t stand seeing her room, thus he cleaned it, and give Nodame dinner because...... well, she is hopeless. Ever since, Nodame always came to Chiaki’s room for dinner, bath, etc. ^_^; because so many different reason: her electricity and gas were cut, don’t have food, etc. And then Chiaki’s live become more lively. Slowly, Nodame managed to make Chiaki strugle for his dream, and Chiaki managed to make Nodame realised her dream.

Aww....... isn’t that sweet?? Btw, I really like the ending, when Chiaki finally realised that he missed Nodame’s piano playing, and went to her hometown to smacked her some sense. Meanwhile Nodame realised that she actually love to play piano and enjoy it, so she decided to become a pro. Then, when she told Chiaki about her plan via handphone (which made Chiaki facefaulted and happy at the same time), he hugged her from behind. Awww........ I couldn’t helped but awwed. It soooo swweeettt...... <3

Okay, that’s enough about romance. Other thing I like in this anime is how the animator made hand movements while playing the instruments. It’s exactly how it should move!! Beautifull!! Not to mention I learned so many thing about orchestra here. Actually I feel ashamed. I mean, I was born in a family who really like clasical musics, I study clasical piano from when I was 7 years old till 19 years old (with little progress -_-;), yet there’s so many pieces I haven’t ever heard before?? Not to mention I know nothing about orchestra. Ah... so embarasing.

And for the music, I really really like the musics in this anime. For clasicall pieces, Mozart is still my favorite. Pity they didn’t play any Tchaikovsky pieces, maybe because it’s too long. And I also like the OP and both of Eds. Beautifully written songs, as you can expect from such an anime.

Round and Round in School Rumble

Okay, it’s time to write something about another series that also become one of my obsession: School Rumble, which is a manga written by Kobayasi Jin. The main story is about high-school love live with all the troubles. Wait, don’t said it’s boring yet, because in this manga we will see a polygonal love live!! Yes, a Polygon!! Not a triangle or square. The genre itself is more Comedy-Romance, than drama. That’s why I like it. Because drama is too boring for me. Well… for me, this series also serve as something to fullfil my need-for-romance attitude, since One Piece don’t have any XD

The story itself started with one of the female protagonist, Tsukamoto Tenma, entering her new semester as a 2nd year student. She looked very eager to start this new semester, because it means she could meet her crush Karasuma Ooji. Well… fate seems very kind to her as both of them ended in a same class. BUT…… unfortunatelly Karasuma will transfer out 2 days after. Not giving up, Tenma will think of a way so that Karasuma won’t leave. And being Tenma, the way she stoped Karasuma really make me LOLed XD

Meanwhile, somewhere else, our male protagonist, Harima Kenji, also looked very eager to start his new semester that he finished out a gang with ease, before riding on his motorcycle to school. Yup, he is a deliquent, with more brawn than brain. And, he has crush for Tenma. Thus he hoped to be in the same class as her. Now this time, fate seems very cruel to him, because he couldn’t find his name on the board. In fact, he didn’t even passed 1st grade ^_^; but with his way, he managed to asked to be in the same class with Tenma.

Now…… from here on, the story will progress as we will meet many other characters such as Tenma’s friends: Sawachika Eri, Suou Mikoto, and Takano Akira. Not to forget Tenma’s sister Tsukamoto Yakumo. These five female characters is considered the main protagonist. Of course there’re also tons of side characters that will have their moments (KJ is so fair, isn’t he?) but I won’t write them here, it’s too many.

So at first, you would thought School Rumble is another triangle highschool love story, but then later on the series, you will see that it’s not. The main love problem will be around Karasuma being like by Tenma (but Karasuma loves….. curry ^_^;), Tenma being like by Harima, Harima being like by Eri, Eri being like by Yoshidayama, etc. So it’s basically a polygon. Complicated?? NO! KJ could make his story very funny (so full with missunderstanding here and there), and interesting. At first, we also will thought that Tenma is the main character, but later on the series, Eri took her place, as the story will be more around her, rather than Tenma.

Now my fav character in this series, as you maybe guessed it already, is Sawachika Eri. She is a tsundere type of girl who act differently from what she actually feels. At first, she seems like a typical mix blood (English-Japanese) beautiful blond rich girl. But later on the series, her character got a tremendous amount of character development, that make her such a complicated character. ^_^ it seems that I really like complicated type character XD Then my favourite male character would be Harima Kenji, the deliquent with more brawn than brain, but he actually a really kind person, and he loves animals. As always, that make Eri-Harima (or also known as Flag faction) my favourite pair in this series.

Now, these days, it seems that the series started the final arc. But with KJ, who knows what’ll happen. If you’re interested to know more about this series, then go to Wanabe wiki or Wanabe forums on the right side of my blog.

A little introduction of One Piece

As I said in my ‘first post’ I’ll write something about One Piece. Well you could already see from the title that I’m a hardcore fan of this series. I’ll tell you a little bit about this wonderfull awesome fantastic series, then maybe you’ll get interested and started reading ^_^ (yup this is a propaganda if you can’t already tell by the title XD)

One Piece is an awesome manga created by the genius Eiichiro Oda since 1997 and still on going up until now (there already 46++ volumes or 466++ chapters!!), and just getting more and more interesting. This year also served as its 10th anniversary. Wonderful isn’t it? And in Japan, all those hardcore fans made something soo special that you’d wish you lived in Japan. ^_^ it’s true, I didn’t made up this thing. Btw, the anime version is made by TOEI since 1999. But I’ll write this introduction based on manga.

So, what’s so interesting about this manga?? One Piece is a story about pirates lived in great pirate era in One Piece world (I mean, the setting isn’t our real world or earth). Just like other shonen manga, the main themes of this series are: Friendship, Adventure, Comedy, and Action. Other than that, you’ll also find certain parts in the story that can make you cry (I mean it!! You’ll cry even though you’re not a sappy person like me. At least you’ll feel touched). Usually these parts are around the character’s pasts. But unlike other Shonen series, One Piece doesn’t have any romance between the main characters at all!! I repeat NO ROMANCE!! At first this make me a little disappointed but then, to tell you the truth, deep in my heart, I like One Piece as it is. Romance will just ruined the series. Besides there are always tons of fanfics, doujins, and fanarts out there to satisfy my need-for-romance attitude =P

The stories of One Piece usually follow a certain formula: the main characters came to an island, there were troubles in the island caused by the antagonist characters, the main characters fought against the antagonist characters, at the end, the island lived happily ever after and often ended with a party. But if you start thinking “then, that’s such a boring story!”, you are completely wrong!! The way Oda writes the story never bored the readers. You’ll find so many surprising things, not to mentioned crazy character designs, and unbelievable crazy ideas in each chapter. Therefore, we fans/readers will always want to read more, and more, and always at the I-can’t-wait-to-read-next-chapter state. (You may think I overdid these, but unfortunately no, I tell you the truth)

The story started with the execution of the Great Pirate King, Gold Roger. He was known to have everything wanted by humankind: wealth, power, and fame. Before he was executed he told everybody who gathered around the execution stage, “do you want my treasure?? Go find it!! I have put it all at that place!”. He was then executed with smile on his face, but his words had pushed everybody to become pirates and find the treasure which was known as One Piece at the Grand Line, thus started the Great Pirate Era. 22 years later, a 17 years old boy, Monkey D. Luffy (our main hero ^^) started his journey to find this treasure and to become the next Pirate King. Along the way, he would meet people that would become his crews, under the flag ‘Strawhat Pirate’ (Mugiwara Kaizokudan).

Start to get interested?? ^_^ I myself started to become a hardcore fan not too long ago. I think it’s around December 2004. A little bit late, but I didn’t regret it at all. Actually I’ve started watching (yes, I watched the anime first) around year 2003. Then with my I-don’t-want-to-die-from-curiousity attitude, I searched for spoilers here and there. Then around December 2004 I stumbled on my fav character’s site, and apparently the arc that going on the manga was focussing in my fav character. At that time, in search for more information, I came to a great One Piece forum, which unfortunattely in a ‘bashing’ attitude towards my fav character, because the story made my fav chara looked bad. Then in order to defend my fav chara, I registered in the forum, but at the end, I never able to make any argument because well....... I’m really bad at it XD

Okay, I’ve warned you about spoiler thing on top of my blog, so I’ll talk freely now. Time to talk about fav characters.

So who is my fav character?? Of course none other than Nico Robin, the beautiful-calm-silent-mature-smart-yet-sometime-can be-very-funny archeologist of the Strawhat Pirate. Her joining the Strawhat crew is one of the bigest shock in One Piece. But not for me. Why? Cause I already know that from spoilers XD Sometimes I wished I have strong will so I won’t open any spoiler, but my curiousity is just too big, so yeah... I always succumb to temptation and ended reading the spoilers
-_- Well.... I’m still lucky though, since I joined the One Piece forum in a ‘Robin centered’ arc, so I didn’t spoil myself about her past, which is indeed very touching (I got a bit dissapointed on several little things though) but I must say Water 7/ Enies Lobby arc is my fav arc up until now. The reason I like her is not just because I always love strong heroines in a series, but because of her personality. She is complicated. We will often saw her as the ‘observer’ type à silent, calm, mature, always seems put some distance towards the other, but actually cares deeply for others. Like I said, she is complicated, so complicated that I got difficulties to describe her. -_-

My second fav chara is Roronoa Zoro. The reason?? Well..... he is a cool-incredibly strong- but sometime can be an idiot-handsome swordsman of the Strawhat Pirate. Need I say more?? XD other than that, again, his personality is what attract me. He is also an observer type. Always act cool, but actually can be very gentle at times. And as a habit of mine, I always pair my fav characters, thus I’m also a Z/R pairing worshipper.

Ah, I could continue writting about One Piece, but I better stopped. Cause I’ll make the post too long if I don’t (as if it haven’t already XD) So, have I convinced you to start reading One Piece?? ^_^ okay, whatever it is, if you’re interested in more information about One Piece, please go to the link on the right side of my blog. Anyway... the One Piece forum I’ve mentioned before is Arlong Park forum. Feel free to join ^_^