I'm not really planning to blog about Kimi ni Todoke regularly, but... argh, this anime is just adorable and fantastically beautiful. It's like, I dunno. A heterosexual version of Aoi Hana or something. I'm completely in love with it.

Sasameki Koto... didn't really impress me. I mean, it was an okay first episode, and it covered the first chapter of the manga neatly, and it had several nice scenes, but to me, it felt kinda dull. And I honestly can't explain why. I'll try to watch some more episodes, but... frankly speaking, this is not Aoi Hana. Perhaps I simply need to stop comparing the two series, but Aoi Hana's sublime artistic brilliance is hard to ignore. Sasameki Koto just doesn't seem to have it. Then again, I dunno, maybe I'm not in the right mood today.

I've finished Umi Monogatari! And I think I can safely call it my #2 favorite summer anime after Aoi Hana (and it's second only because Aoi Hana has full-blown canon yuri, while Umi Monogatari doesn't REALLY take it beyond deep friendship; though Marin x Kanon is still my OTP, of course ♥). It's very beautiful and surprisingly deep: I mean, it's not the most unique story ever and it follows many common conventions of the magical girl genre, but it's also quite moving, and I like the main message of the story. ( SPOILERS ) And now I'll go and search for some fanart. I SINCERELY HOPE that I'm not the only one who adores Kanon x Marin - or Marin x Kanon, or whatever, as long as they are together. Their relationship is perfect and awesome and completely non-hierarchical.

I... didn't really do anything useful today. Um, well, I wrote a very silly Death Note fanfic for my favorite contest community. I also saw the finale of Aoi Hana and loved it immensely, even more than the corresponding parts of the manga. And that was my day. Tomorrow's going to be tough for me. My Fridays tend to suck. >.>;;; Only Friday evenings are okay because you can really feel that you're done with your work... at least for a while. ^^;;; Ah well. I need to stop complaining, most of my friends work so much more than I do. ;;;

Wow, Sasameki Koto is really great, very funny and adorable! It's different from Aoi Hana, but both stories are wonderful in their own ways. My favorite character in Sasameki Koto is Ushio Kazama, she's so funny. ^^ As for Kimi ni Todoke, hmm... while it's certainly cute, I honestly don't know where the plot is going to go. The first two chapters reveal that the protagonists clearly like each other a lot, they just haven't confessed yet (Sawako in particular seems to be unaware of her own true feelings), so they simply need to get together? Oh, and Sawako's personal aim is to become more open and social. It might work well, and I guess it's popular among shoujo readers for a reason, but... argh, I dunno. It hasn't grabbed me yet. I'm not concerned about the characters' futures. I don't hate it, it just doesn't feel dramatic enough, and Sawako's similarity to Sadako doesn't sound like a convincing problem to me. Sure, people get bullied and ostracized for the most ridiculous reasons - trust me, I know that from my own experience, but perhaps Sawako's situation is simply not too well-written. Um, I apologize in advance if you like Kimi ni Todoke. ^^;;; I want to like it, I'm generally quite fond of mild, slow-paced slice-of-life stories, so I will give it a chance. It's quite possible that I'm in the mood for some epic shoujo tragedy at the moment, and Kimi ni Todoke can't deliver that by definition.

So what are you planning to watch in the autumn season? Here's a list of new anime. I'm definitely interested in Sasameki Koto, which is a yuri series; I've already started reading the manga, and it seems good. Since Aoi Hana is going to end pretty soon, I'll need something else from this genre... I'm also curious about Kimi ni Todoke because it's a shoujo story with references to Sadako from Ring (I'm a big fan of Sadako-san *.* I even own all Ring books). ^^;;; I won't necessarily fall in love with it, but I must check it out. Winter Sonata sounds promising because it's an anime adaptation of a Korean TV drama, and while I don't watch dramas, I'm somewhat fond of Korean movies in general. Is it just me or do Koreans really have a thing for bittersweet stories? Sangoku Engi might be good - sadly, I'm not familiar with the original Chinese novel. And Yumeiro Pâtissière will most likely be a story for younger girls, but... I'm a big old dork who likes cute Ribon manga. ^^;;; Though I'm afraid I won't follow all of these anime anyway, I'm seriously bad at focusing on things. ;;; I'll simply pick the best ones and stick to them.

Okay, here's that long shipping survey! Warning: may contain spoilers for all tagged series. ( MEME )

Yesterday we went to the beach (for the second time this summer!) and Kito brought us our huge manga package. Heh... group orders are awesome because you can get something for yourself and look at other people's books for free. Anyway, I got my 3 new books (Baku-man, Vampire Knight and Natsume Yuujinchou) and flipped through my friends' manga. I also received the payment for my, er... random freelance work. ^^ I have to thank Kito for this, too. ♥ Greed is my favorite Fullmetal Alchemist character for a very good reason, yes. I'll probably waste it very soon, but right now it looks so nice in my wallet... ≧∇≦ Alright! Let's look for other money-making strategies! \*∆*/ Oh, and Vampire Knight is just too pretty with its Yuuki x Yori cover, and so is Natsume Yuujinchou, and Baku-man, well - I finally have a book with lots and lots of fantastic Eiji-centric scenes in it! Hmm... Oh, yeah, I saw episode 2 of Aoi Hana today. I won't blog about this series regularly (I'm afraid I'm too lazy and unorganized for proper anime-blogging), but I definitely will fangirl about it from time to time because it's beautiful and I love Akira to death.

I read all 18 volumes of Peach Girl (as well as 3 volumes of Ura Peach Girl, Sae's sidestory) last night. It was fun, although most characters were hard for me to relate to. I just... kept laughing at their issues. ;;; Maybe I'm not sensitive enough. ^^;;; And now I'm reading Cross Game, a slice-of-life manga by Mitsuru Adachi. It's amazing. *.* No, really. Adachi-sensei's style is simple, but there's a lot of talent behind that simplicity, and he's a fantastic storyteller and a powerful realist. He seems to be a very popular author in Japan (I mean, hey, Rumiko Takahashi herself considers him a rival - in a friendly way, yes, but still...), and I can tell why, he's so damn good. I've just finished volume 1 and I'm already thinking about buying it - a bit later, maybe in August. It's THAT awesome. @.@ Gee... I'll have to save quite a lot of money. ;;; I want to buy at least one book of Aoi Hana, and volume 1 of Cross Game, and on top of that, I absolutely must complete my Death Note collection (I own all volumes that feature Teru and also a couple of Arc I books, but that's not enough, obviously!). Hee. Oh well. Life's like that.

I watched episode 1 of Taisho Yakyuu Musume without subtitles - my computer hates most .MKV files and there are no .AVI subs of this series at the moment; .MP4 is okay for me though, as long as the file is not too huge. Well, even so, it wasn't much of a problem for me: the plot and the dialogues were mostly understandable. And I loved it! I loved it so much! It might become my second favorite summer anime after Aoi Hana, and you know that I'm a huge fan of Aoi Hana. There are so many reasons why Taisho Yakyuu Musume is awesome - I like how it's set in the Taisho era and the all-female cast is really sweet. Much to my delight, Mamiko Noto-san is among the main seiyuu. And I have a thing for baseball, too, although I don't play it and I can't say that I know the rules all that well, much like the heroines. ^^;;; And despite the show's seemingly light-hearted nature, it actually deals with stuff like male chauvinism in a way that I like a lot (so far): Akiko wants to Prove a Point™ to a male baseball player who believes that women should be housewives and stop going to schools, but she's not a tough amazon, she can be gentle and sensitive and she allows herself to cry over things that hurt her and make her angry (such as this guy's words). Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against aggressive girls, but I also don't want fictional feminists to be stereotypical. Strength comes in different packages. ^^ Overall, I'm extremely pleased with Taisho Yakyuu Musume. ♥

Episode 1 of Aoi Hana was absolutely excellent. I loved every minute of it. ♥ I can't wait to see the next episode, even though I know the story from the manga! It's gonna be a long week! ^^; Really... it's just very well-made, fairly simple but beautiful, and all characters are very attractive. Ai Takabe-san sounds great as Fumi, she seems like a good new seiyuu, and I like Akira's voice, too. I'm also highly pleased with the fact that the OP has some amount of subtly erotic content - of the Akira x Fumi variety, of course; much as I like their pure and (currently) non-sexual relationship, I do want their OTP-ness to be obvious to everyone. \*≧∇≦*/

Alas, I can't buy this lovely Kuroshitsuji anthology done by great artists like LanWu-san... but their art fills me with inspiration. ♥ Our Death Note fan book isn't even done yet and I want to do a doujinshi anthology again. ;;; Oh, also, I've started Hourou Musuko, a manga by the author of Aoi Hana. It's a really terrific story of two transgender kids, Shuuichi and Yoshino. I love it so much. ♥ ♥ ♥ It's just as good as Aoi Hana.

Yesterday I sat down and devoured all 4 volumes of Aoi Hana in just a couple of hours or so. It was fantastic, I loved it so much. As you probably know, I like slice-of-life manga and anime, and Aoi Hana is also a yuri romance, it's practically made for me. Please check it out if you like yuri at least a little bit, I seriously need to discuss it with someone. *o* Naturally, I love Akira, one of the protagonists, but Fumi is an interesting and complex character as well. Yasuko is also awesome - I'm not sure whether I actually like her as a person or not, but she's very... you know, realistic? I can totally imagine a girl like her. It's funny, she's kinda similar to me, appearance-wise, and we often affect people in the same ways, but her personality is very different from mine. Oh, and... of course I love Shimura-sensei's drawing style. It's seemingly simple, but she's VERY skilled, for example, her panel compositions are nearly flawless, and her color pics are so elegant and light, and she's great at using screentones, too, and basically she's just good. I'll try to find her other works later. I WANT THE ANIME. LIKE. NOW. TODAY. *o*

In case you're curious about the upcoming summer anime season, Pyro and her friends have a very nice preview here - thanks for the info, guys! ♥ The season itself doesn't sound terribly exciting to me though, but I'll probably try Aoi Hana, since it appears to be a slice-of-life yuri series, and I'm very fond of both genres; I also like the summary of Geijutsuka Art Design Class because it's about, well, art. The only drawback is that it's a comedy, and I want my art-centric anime to be more dramatic... but then again, Baku-man has heaps of humorous content and I certainly don't mind it at all (though I suppose I just like Ohba-sensei's warped sense of humor). So I guess I need to check it out at least. I'll also watch the first episodes of Umi Monogatari, Taisho Yakyuu Musume and Kanamemo - anything that involves pretty girls and does not belong to the shounen harem genre deserves my attention. ^^ Many people have doubts about Umi Monogatari since it's a magical girl anime based on a pachinko game (of all things), but I have no problems with this genre as a long-time Pretty Soldier Sailormoon fan. ^^; Now I'll go and read the manga version of Aoi Hana. Oh, and this is not exactly related to the summer season, but... Kuroshitsuji is going to get a second part. I am... deeply puzzled by this. I'm a manga-only fan, but I do know something about the finale of the anime and... how on earth are they planning to make Season II WORK? @.@; Oh... well.