Anime Day 3

September 18th, 2015

Aisaka Taiga

Day 3 – Your anime crush

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.

Disclaimer: I was still a teenager (18) when I watched Toradora, so please understand that me adoring Taiga (who is 17 in the end of the show) is perfectly fine.

But yes Taiga, so small, so cute, so waifu. But to be more serious, the reason why I had a crush on Taiga, was not just because of herself, I was more thanks to Ryuuji, who I admired and wanted to become so that I could support my own Taiga. Basically if I wish I were in Ryuuji’s shoes and have Taiga as my waifu.

Taiga is small and cute, but she is also a Tsundere. While I like tsunderes, sometimes they are a bit too violent, and Taiga is no exception. However the concept of love from hate has always been something that I thought was amazing and to be one of the most strongest forms of love. Also her growth throughout the series is something I would love to see in any girl I am with. Taiga started off in a dirty house by herself, not knowing how to take care of herself or interact with people, but thanks to Ryuuji, she grew into a fine girl with lots of friends and housewife skills that can only match Ryuuji himself. One thing I still can’t forgive her for is leaving him for 1 year, I think there could have been a better compromise, but thats not something I can change.

So thats why Taiga is my first anime crush and my top waifu. If there is a real life version of her, please introduce me to her!

Anime Day 2

September 17th, 2015

Continuing on with the daily my daily anime questions.

Toradora

Day 2 – Favorite anime you’ve watched so far

This is a hard one. Picking a favourite anime out of this list… But if I had to chose one, I’d probably stick with Toradora. It was my very first favourite and I want to keep it as my most favourite because of the plot, characters and general atmosphere of the show. Though I wouldn’t go around and recommending it to every single person I see, and I won’t say that all other anime aside from it is bad, but it will always have a soft spot in my heart.

Aside from Toradora, I’d say my other favourite would be the Monogatari series, as it a beautiful peace of animation,with great character development, engaging dialogue, thought provoking themes, deep plot, intelligent humour, symbolism…. meanwhile at Shaft. I also guess that Taiga and Shinobu are the sole reason why I love tiny girls so much. But thats a discussion for another post.

Essentially anything I give a 10 on my list is a favourite of a genre, or has something unique, that other shows have not been able to show me. And I of course would recommend you take a look at those shows, if not all then at least some.

100 anime days – Day 1

September 16th, 2015

In 2013 when I just became an exec in anime@UTS, Anthony and I started this “game” where every day we would post 1 question on the club FB group and all the new and existing members would reply to. These questions ranged from favourite anime characters, to most hated moments, but were always related to anime. We called it 100 days of anime. Now, almost 3 years later, the list has found me again (thanks to a certain kiri bird), and I decided, why not do it again, this time on my blog. It would give it new life, and honestly when was the last time I blogged about anything anime related?

Chobits

Day 1 – Very first anime

Ok, so this one is a bit tough, mainly because when I was a kid and watched Cartoon Network and Jetix, I had no idea that some of the shows I watched were actually anime (Japanese made animated TV shows). So excluding stuff like Pokemon, Digimon, Shaman King, etc. my first anime would be Chobits. Its a romantic comedy about a guy in modern Japan, who falls in love with a robot (I know crazy right…. We shall see who has the last laugh in about 20 years when that becomes the norm). Its a rather touching story about love, hardships and life in general; spiced up by sci-fi and echi.

Why did I watch it? My friend Andrew from the UK (well he is actually Ukranian, but lives in the UK) came over to Latvia for a visit and he just got into anime himself. What better way to share your interests then to spread them around. We opened up YouTube and watched my first ever (proper) anime, English dub though.

Then I watched Love Hind, Ouran, Umisho, Hayate, Zero no Tsukaima, Index, etc…. etc…

Sapporo Snow Festival

February 11th, 2015

SnowFestival

Every year a bunch of snow sculptures are constructed in the Ōdōri park in Sapporo. This year is the 66th Sapporo snow festival and we (Amy and I) had the opportunity to experience it first hand.

To start of, I would like to say that with big events like this, it is important to book hotels and flights early. I booked everything around the middle of November and that was apparently too late by Japanese standard. All the affordable hotels in Sapporo city were booked out, so the best I could find was a Toyoko Inn in the nearby city of Tomakomai, which is 1 hour away from Sapporo by train. But that was ok and well worth it in the end.

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Psycho Pass Movie Review

January 20th, 2015

PsychoPassMovie

Set after the events of season 1 and 2 this movie brings a new arch to the Psycho Pass series with a new story while bringing back some familiar faces. If you haven’t watched seasons 1 and 2, there is little to no point of watching the movie as it revolves around established ideas and characters. Though season 2 was not as well accepted as the original, it is still worth watching as it hold some key plot points which are discussed in the movie.

For those who have seen the previous seasons, they will be pleased to hear the Gen Urubuchi is back in charge and he once again does a marvellous job of creating a new environment and portraying the characters in that setting. Before I continue any further, I would like to warn everyone that if you press “Read More” then you will be spoiled for seasons 1, 2 and parts of the movie.
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Cosplaying

September 21st, 2014

cosplay

Cosplay, its an art of dressing up as a character from a TV series, movie, game or any other form of media. You get to pretend to be your favourite character, maybe act out a scene or two from the show/game.

My friends from anime@uts and JASS are doing this thing on Facebook where they talk about their cosplay experiences and tag other people to do it too. So I have been tagged, and instead of posting it on Facebook (ugh Facebook), I’m gonna talk about it here, on my blog.

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Comiket 86

August 18th, 2014

Comiket

Comiket is the worlds biggest anime convention. It is different from cons in the West though, because comiket was originally established as a market place for comics (hence the name Comic Market) as apposed to western cons which are more to celebrate the love for anime and manga. These days comiket held at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center, a huge building close to Odaiba, and around 500,000 people visit each day during the 3 day period in summer and winter.

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Kagerou Project

June 29th, 2014

Kagerou_Days

As the spring season of 2014 comes to a close, I would like to take some time and write about one of the (I would like to say best, but I can’t) coolest anime of the season – Mekakucity Actors. Usually anime is based on manga, light novels, games, or is original story, but not Mekakucity (it was but not entirely), this anime was based of a series of Voclaloid songs called Kagerou Project (SPOILERS for the series, watch at own risk) made by Jin and posted on NicoNicoDouga. Though the original songs were adapted into a series of light novels and a manga, the story of the anime, same as the LN and mange took a turn in its own direction in places, showing of things that you could not see in the other media.

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The Wind Rises Review

February 16th, 2014

KazeTachinu

When thinking of the works of award winning director – Hayao Miyazaki you would normally think of his amazing fairy tale type movies like My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away or Howls Moving Castle. They are all similar in the sense that they are set out in a somewhat realistic world with elements of magic and mystery and these become the predominant aspects of the story, which create the unforgettable feeling of a Studio Ghibli Movie. The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ), however differs from the tradition fantasy genre and is based on a true story of a Jiro Horikoshi, an aerospace engineer, who’s dream was to create beautiful planes that would surpass the German designs in both speed and power. Even though the setting is in real life World War I and then World War II Japan, this touching story of a young boys dream, dedication to work, search for perfection, love and despair is one of the best works of Director Miyazaki. It really shows us, just how fragile a human life really is.

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Blumenkranz

February 3rd, 2014

Blumenkranz

Blumenkranz – in german it means a wreath of flowers (ring of flowers) and that is what normal german speakers would think if they heard anyone say this word. Well if anime fas, who are watching the show Kill La Kill hears this word, they will undoubtedly think of the second best track from the OST (Original Sound Track) which bears the same name – Blumenkranz.

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