Colored Ink
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about me name: n/aaliases: kit, kits, kit kat, the smart girl, foxay, an chin age: 17 location: socal, usa hobbies: anime, manga, reading, writing, doodling, video games, french horn likes: all of the above, being lazy, mushrooms, cheese, animals, laughing loudly in public dislikes: nuts, stinging/biting insects, religious fanatics, violence, olives contact: coloredink@mailcity add .com wishlist playstation 2car summer job a good night's sleep money stress-free life trigun dvd box set realistic wishlist dayworld by philip josé farmerkabuki by david mack moxy fruvous live noise hellsing dvd box set long-term obsessions anime/mangayaoi/shounenai clamp music animals life and living video games current obsession(s) schoolcollege currently reading nothing newcurrently playing ffxdevil may cry currently watching hana yori dango (20)ayashi no ceres (11) utena (23) gto tv (23?) ccs tv (19?) mirage of blaze (6) witch hunter robin (17) kogepan (10) weiß kreuz gluhen (3) naruto (16) houshin engi (21) wolf's rain (3) |
Sunday, January 26, 2003 [link] 09:16 p.m. listening to: "Ulysses" - Cirque du Soleil Oh my God, Cirque du Soleil rocks. Why didn't someone hit me over the head with this earlier? Sunday, January 26, 2003 [link] 08:12 p.m. listening to: "Spanish Doll" - Poe This song just gets WEDGED IN YOUR HEAD. Auuuuugh. It's stuck in my head pretty much constantly now. Just read all of +Anima that was up at Toriyama World. I [HEART] SENRI. [HEART] [HEART] [HEART]. I swear, I practically thrash in glee every time it seems that we're going to find out more about him and/or his past. Sunday, January 26, 2003 [link] 01:55 p.m. listening to: "King of Pain" - Sting w/ Alanis Morissette I discovered just now that all my Sting mp3s had somehow mysteriously disappeared. Fortunately, they were all on one of my CDs, so I was able to retrieve them. Putting away groceries just now with some of my dad's new friends, at least one of whom I think recently came from China. I love smoked oysters, especially in porridge, so Dad always buys some when he goes shopping. They could not for the life of them figure out what the mysterious flat tins were, and I suppose the illustration wasn't very enlightening, seeing as how it portrays a bunch of shapeless yellow things. I couldn't remember the Chinese word for "oyster" at all, so I had to wave vaguely and say, "Um. . . they come from the ocean. . . they're in shells. . . sometimes they have pearls in them. . ." They figured it out after I mentioned the pearls. ^_^;;; Yeah, my life is lame. And I don't want to go to rehearsal today, but that's because I'm feeling lethargic. Saturday, January 25, 2003 [link] 10:57 p.m. listening to: nothing When I get bored (and I'm bored, this weekend; all my projects are done, all I have to do is study for finals), I download random manga. I would download random anime, but I don't really have the bandwidth or speed for that. Alas. But, manga's pretty cool. But before I talk about manga, I'd like to talk about Naruto 16, which I just watched. Pretty cool. Little spoilery bits here, which I'll blank out. Sasuke's "death" was nicely dramatic. If I hadn't know that he's only temporarily dead, I probably would have been stunned. ^^;; But, uh, having volume 4 of the manga kind of ruined all the drama for me. And boy howdy, does shounenai just kind of slap you in the face right there. But. . . Sasunaru is just so wrong. Arrrgh. The scene with the seal breaking was also incredibly cool to see animated. I saw it in the manga, but it wasn't nearly as impressive. Anyway, manga I've read lately due to boredom and way too much free time are Hunter X Hunter, Bleach, Zombie Powder, and Black Cat, all of which can be found at Toriyama World. Black Cat was suggested to me by Jasmine, and it's definitely worth a look. The premise is not new--two bounty hunters, or "Sweepers," with Dark Pasts (well, Train has a Dark Past) who roam the land looking for bounties, money, and quite possibly revenge. The protagonist, Train, is tremendously lovable, from his catlike personality traits to his incredible determination. And he kicks amazing ass. His partner, Sven, is also quite an interesting guy, a "self-styled gentleman" who experiments with making bombs and bullets. This series also gets points for having female characters that don't completely suck. Namely, Rinslet Walker, who somehow manages to be maybe three-quarters as cool as Faye Valentine (Faye Valentine being one of the coolest female characters, like, ever). She's not a damsel in distress, she's quite an accomplished thief, and. . . I dunno, she just Doesn't Suck. Overall, I'd give Black Cat a B. Zombie Powder is another series that features very strong characters. The protagonist, Akutabi Gamma, seeks the twelve Rings of the Dead in order to make Zombie Powder, which can bring the dead back to life and give the living immortality. He fights with a sword that functions something like a gigantic chainsaw. He has a partner, the incredibly cool C.T. Smith, a man who looks like an accountant but kicks your ass, my ass, and the kid down the street's ass. They're joined by Elwood, a boy who wants to bring his sister back to life, and Wolfina, whose comatose brother possesses one of the Rings of the Dead. Now, ordinarily, I would hate Elwood and Wolfina. Elwood is a wussy little boy who constantly needs to be rescued. But he grows. He gets better, he becomes stronger, and after a while he doesn't need to be rescued anymore. He's also a big-hearted boy who doesn't like to see people suffer. I like him. Wolfina, meanwhile, is a reckless, big-breasted woman (I don't know how her back takes the strain) who fights with a modified tripod. She kicks ass with that tripod, I mean it, and smothers people with her breasts! XD And she dearly loves her brother, and feels horribly guilty about being indirectly responsible for his being in a coma. She, too, has a big heart, and can be very compassionate, although she also has something of a temper. But it's hilarious when she beats Gamma with a ladle. I'd give this series a B. Hunter X Hunter is by the same author of Yuu Yuu Hakusho, which is one of the earliest anime I remember liking. YYH isn't bad by any means, but after about the first thirty episodes it gets really repetitive. It's the same for Hunter X Hunter, although in a different way. I like the characters much better than I did in YYH. Kurama and Hiei were the only two characters I really liked, whereas in HxH I like all four of the main protagonists. Gon is a young boy who wants to become a Hunter (who do jobs ranging from gourmet cooking to treasure hunting to bodyguarding) and find his father. While passing the strenuous Hunter test, he meets Killua, a boy from a family of assassins; Kurapika, a young man seeking revenge for his clan; and Leorio, a man who wants to become a Hunter for money so that he can become a doctor who works for free. The Hunter test takes up about two volumes and is pretty interesting, and then after that it degenerates into training, training, and more training, and then fighting, fighting, and more fighting. I'm sorry, that just doesn't hold my interest very well. C+/B-. Bleach kicks amazing amounts of ass. Ichigo is a perfectly normal young man who can see ghosts. One day, he meets a Shinigami (God of Death) and is forced to take on her duties of defeating evil spirits called Hollows. Well, his duties also include sending "good" spirits to the other side, but the series mostly deals with the Hollows. Hunting and defeating each Hollow usually takes a few chapters, with a good dose of humor and action in each one. Ichigo is enormously likable, and the shinigami is keen, too, although I can never remember her name, for some reason. ^^;; The series can be surprisingly emotional, and the defeat of each Hollow is a new lesson for Ichigo. I [HEART] Bleach so very, very much. Ichigo looks smashingly cool in Shinigami form. A+. . . . it's very sad that my entries get monstrously huge when I'm talking about anime. ^^;; I have no life. Well, bed for me now. Friday, January 24, 2003 [link] 02:45 p.m. listening to: "Try Not to Breathe" - R.E.M. I'm all for it. Friday, January 24, 2003 [link] 02:31 p.m. listening to: nothing I failed my first AP Bio test today! Damn. Broke my passing streak (three people in the class had passed all their tests, and I was one of them). But it's okay! I failed my one test of the year, so that means I won't fail any more, right? Right. I'm upset because I missed passing by one question, actually. I think I would feel better if I'd missed by, like, a lot. Want more Wolf's Rain, la. My AP Government presentation went well. We had some very lively presentations. There are a lot of funny people in my class, or at least people with funny reactions to Mr. Hammett's questions. I can't wait until I'm in college and don't have to do display boards anymore, because I have the ugliest display boards and posters and crap in the world. I'm just not arty like that. We had our first AP-type writing prompt in AP Lit today. Wow, that wasn't fun. I don't think anyone in the class had a single idea what they were doing. I think my essay turned out decent, except that I basically made up the entirety of my third body paragraph because I didn't remember anything that happens in Things Fall Apart. Not to mention that I had sporadic bursts of suddenly not being able to recall any character's name in Emma. Well, besides Emma, of course. ^^;; You know, I seem to remember they changed Emma's name in the movie version, with Gwyneth Paltrow. I wonder why? All in all, a good day. Even if I did fail my AP Bio test. But, la! No use crying over spilled milk, right? I'll just study a bit and whip that test the second time. I'm pretty sure I know what I got wrong, anyway. Thursday, January 23, 2003 [link] 06:24 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I AM DONE WITH MY GOVERNMENT PROJECT. HALLELUJAH! Now, I should probably study for my Bio test tomorrow. Or read my Government book. Or. . . goof off the rest of the night. We'll see what I end up doing. Heh heh. Oh! And I got swag from Whitney! Well, not really swag. More like CDs full of music. But. . . yay! **loveloveWhitney** Thursday, January 23, 2003 [link] 03:27 p.m. listening to: big honkin' playlist I'm download Wolf's Rain 3 right now. Rebecca already has it; doubtlessly, Whitney has it too. I think I'll make it my goal to beat them someday, and acquire the latest episode before they do. Ha! It's the little things. School has once again sucked out all my creativity, and the voices have left me again. It makes me want to cry, this silence in my head. They'll be back, I know they will (they have to), but for now, it's unsettling, this sensation of being all alone. Today, while walking the Eagle Corridor (the cute name someone gave the plywood "hallway" that's set up next to the construction, dimly lit with a string of lightbulbs on the ceiling), I saw one of my acquaintances walking with two people I didn't know. She waved to me, and I waved back and said, "Ho." We passed by each other, and I heard one of the guys ask, "Who the hell was that?" She replied, "A writer." Maybe I was hearing things. I must have been hearing things. And yet, I don't quite know what to say. Wednesday, January 22, 2003 [link] 09:17 p.m. listening to: "Strawberry Gashes" - Jack Off Jill Anime babble time! Spoilers ahoy for Witch Hunter Robin and Weiß Kreuz Gluhen. First, Gluhen. I'm not quite sure why I'm watching this series. I didn't even like the first series that much. And yet, something compels me to keep watching. It's dumb, it's basically nothing but fan service and eye candy, there's really nothing redeeming about the series, and yet. . . I watch it. Maybe I'm just stupid. Izumi/Takeru is quite possibly one of the most irritating characters I've ever seen. I'm not even quite sure what it is about him that makes me want to slap him. Quite possibly, it's because he's your typical rash newbie who goes charging off into situations without thinking things through first. He's also incredibly melodramatic, which is annoying. His only redeeming quality might be that he's able to kick ass quite well. Hurrah! Kyou seems to be a really. . . redundant character. I don't know why he's there. It's almost like the creators thought, "Hey, we want someone on the team who uses an axe. That'd be nifty. While we're at it, let's make him the computer geek, since Omi's Persia now. And make his personality almost exactly like Ken, because we need another normal guy on the team." And boom, Kyou. Why is he there? Although I did like it when he punched Izumi in the gut. Anyway, yeah, I spent most of episode three of Gluhen wanting to slap Izumi. And now, Witch Hunter Robin! Massive, massive spoilers. You have been warned. In fact, I'll blot it out, the spoilers are so massive. I really like Witch Hunter Robin. It's a pretty slow-moving show--the episodes are fairly formulaic up until episode twelve, when plot twists start to kick into gear--so you have to have a lot of stamina. It kind of captures your attention in the first episode with some good action, and then after that each episode is basically the same until, uh, episode twelve, when stuff happens that's fairly intriguing. Good thing I'm persistent when it comes to watching anime. I think one of the things that really draws me to Witch Hunter Robin is Robin herself. Female characters that I actually like are pretty rare, because it seems to be difficult to balance a female character. If you make her too strong, she might come across as pushy and bitchy. If you make her too weak, she's a damsel in distress who's useless and can't do anything for herself. Robin's a wonderful balance of the two. She's strong enough to take care of herself, but she's also flawed, and needs support from other people (though she may not like it, which is very human). It's not very obvious from her appearance, either; she's a very demure, soft-spoken girl, which hides the fact that she's made of steel. Wonderful. Now, I'm going to ramble about episode fifteen for a while, which is titled, "Time to Say Goodbye." When an episode's titled something like that, it's pretty much a guarantee that someone's going to die, especially since the preceding episodes featured people trying to kill Robin. I had a pretty decent idea it was Amon, since he was already suspected by the other members of STN-J as having a hand in the people who were apparently hunting Robin. I didn't really think much of this at the time, since I didn't have any real feelings for Amon. Yeah, he's hot, he kicks ass, blah blah blah. But he was so aloof and distant from the other characters that I was just very "eh" about him. That changed in episode fifteen, as I watched Amon very clearly risk his life for Robin, as the other members of STN-J fell to gunshots by the mysterious people invading their headquarters. I listened to his explanation of the hunt for Kate, Robin's predecessor, and suddenly I gained a new respect for Amon. It became clear to me that he loved Robin, in the truest sense of the word. I feel very justifed in using the word "love" instead of "gigantic horking crush." It felt very sudden (I mean, Amon had been pretty aloof before), but at the same time, I knew it was because he hadn't really had to examine his feelings for Robin until he had to wonder whether or not he could hunt her. I screamed, "KISS HER, YOU FOOL!" a few times. Scenes like this one inspire that in me. Then the bastards shot him and he died. Okay, that last statement may not be entirely accurate. It's not known for sure whether he's dead, and there have been several pretty blatant hints that he's alive, we just don't know where he is. Does Factory have him? Is he in hiding? I do, however, have the dreadful feeling that when he reappears, it's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be a tearful "Amon, you're alive!" reunion; it might, in fact, involving Amon putting a gun to Robin's head. Argh. I just have that foreboding feeling. It breaks my heart to look at Robin now. She's a strong young woman, as I've said before, and she's still strong. She followed Amon's instructions, she has a job, she's kept herself safe, and she's learning things, now that she's no longer working for STN-J. But you can see it, when she's alone; there's been a scene or two already where she thinks of Amon and you can see that she's hurting. I credit her, though, that she's not just sitting around helplessly, waiting for Amon to "rescue" her. In fact, she thinks, "I'm waiting for you, Amon--but I don't just want to wait." She wants to get out there and look for him. She isn't because she doesn't want to put anyone else in danger (such as Amon's friend, who's sheltering her), and also presumably because Amon told her to stay put. So, yeah. Witch Hunter Robin is a good, good show. Not good enough that I want to run out and buy up Kinokuniya's stock of manga, but good enough that I do want to buy something to support whoever created this series. The premise behind the series may not be entirely new (it's very difficult to find something that new), but it's innovative enough to keep you interested. |
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