This is depressing. But as everyone can see, this blog has been on a long hiatus.
Maybe I have already shut it down?

Whereas I could blog and review about manga and anime back in my college days, despite all those crazy assignment deadlines and blasted examinations, working proved to be a very different thing.

I just couldn’t find the time to blog. Heck, I couldn’t even find the time to watch anime. (The Book of Bantorra was awesome though, I’m glad I had an off day on thursday to rush through my anime.) The irony is, I am in Japan. I am working in Japan. And I don’t have the time to watch anime or read manga.

Bloody hell.

So I am putting this blog on hiatus. I don’t want to think of a shutdown yet. You’ll never know when a sudden outburst of I WANT TO REVIEW THIS SHIT! might happen. Meanwhile, I am trying to keep my other traveling blog alive. Even then, it is failing miserably.

This is so sad. =(

The philosophers, politicians, dead poets and even the Pope, think they have the answer...

Plato: For the greater good.

Karl Marx: It was a historical inevitability.

Machiavelli: So that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken's dominion maintained.

Hippocrates: Because of an excess of light pink gooey stuff in its pancreas.

Jacques Derrida: Any number of contending discourses may be discovered within the act of the chicken crossing the road, and each interpretation is equally valid as the authorial intent can never be discerned, because structuralism is DEAD, DAMMIT, DEAD!

Thomas de Torquemada: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I'll find out.

Timothy Leary: Because that's the only kind of trip the Establishment would let it take.

Douglas Adams: Forty-two.

Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across you.

Oliver North: National Security was at stake.

B.F. Skinner: Because the external influences which had pervaded its sensorium from birth had caused it to develop in such a fashion that it would tend to cross roads, even while believing these actions to be of its own free will.

Carl Jung: The confluence of events in the cultural gestalt necessitated that individual chickens cross roads at this historical juncture, and therefore synchronicitously brought such occurrences into being.

Jean-Paul Sartre: In order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Ludwig Wittgenstein: The possibility of "crossing" was encoded into the objects "chicken" and "road", and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road crossed the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

Aristotle: To actualize its potential.

Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature.

Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history.  An historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such an herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurence.

Salvador Dali: The Fish.

Darwin: It was the logical next step after coming down from the trees.

Emily Dickinson: Because it could not stop for death.

Epicurus: For fun.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:  It didn't cross the road; it transcended it.

Johann von Goethe:    The eternal hen-principle made it do it.

Ernest Hemingway:     To die. In the rain.

Werner Heisenberg:    We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

David Hume:           Out of custom and habit.

Jack Nicholson:      'Cause it (censored) wanted to. That's the (censored) reason.

Pyrrho the Skeptic:   What road?

Ronald Reagan:        I forget.

John Sununu:          The Air Force was only too happy to provide the transportation, so quite understandably the chicken availed himself of the opportunity.

The Sphinx:           You tell me.

Mr. T:                If you saw me coming you'd cross the road too!

Henry David Thoreau:  To live deliberately ... and suck all the marrow out of life.

Mark Twain:           The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.

Molly Yard:           It was a hen!

Zeno of Elea:         To prove it could never reach the other side.

Chaucer:              So priketh hem nature in hir corages.

Wordsworth:           To wander lonely as a cloud.

The Godfather:        I didn't want its mother to see it like that.

Keats:                Philosophy will clip a chicken's wings.

Blake:                To see heaven in a wild fowl.

Othello:              Jealousy.

Dr Johnson:           Sir, had you known the Chicken for as long as I have, you would not so readily enquire, but feel rather the Need to resist such a public Display of your own lamentable and incorrigible Ignorance.

Mrs Thatcher: This chicken's not for turning.

Supreme Soviet: There has never been a chicken in this photograph.

Oscar Wilde: Why, indeed? One's social engagements whilst in town ought never expose one to such barbarous inconvenience - although, perhaps, if one must cross a road, one may do far worse than to cross it as the chicken in question.

Kafka: Hardly the most urgent enquiry to make of a low-grade insurance clerk who woke up that morning as a hen.

Swift: It is, of course, inevitable that such a loathsome, filth-ridden and degraded creature as Man should assume to question the actions of one in all respects his superior.

Macbeth: To have turned back were as tedious as to go o'er.

Whitehead: Clearly, having fallen victim to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Freud: An die andere Seite zu kommen. (Much laughter)

Hamlet: That is not the question.

Donne: It crosseth for thee.

Pope: It was mimicking my Lord Hervey.

Constable: To get a better view.

~~I just ADORE forward emails.~~

Are you excited? Are you?

Well, NOT REALLY. I kinda know Kubo Tite’s tricks. Aizen, pawned by Shinji? *scoff* I’m be damned if Aizen get a hit. I’m pretty excited with this though —>

Kamen Rider! Gravure!  >.<

For Naruto this week, well it’s…  alright I guess? I just hate the fact that Danzo has a sharingan suddenly, has a few panels of jutsu and viola, nothing more explained. Meh. What happened to Naruto’s right eye by the way? I can’t remember, but now he looks like a mini-danzo. Pfft. Is it some kind of foreshadowing that Kishimoto is doing? Both Danzo and Naruto having bandages on their right eye? What’s with Kishimoto and bandaged eyes!? ARGH. I like the introduction of the Iron Hidden Village though. Samurai! Thought it’ll never come, have been waiting forever for some Samurai appearance. COOL! What’s a ninja manga without samurai (and vice versa, even Bleach did it!) right?

Summer’s anime left me very much “meh”. Nothing seemed interesting enough for me to follow but I’m checking them out anyway. Out of the shitty list, I found one gem, surprisingly. Bakemonogatari vaguely caught my interest initially with the wordplay on the title. Bakemono= Monster, Ghosts etc and Monogatari= Story. Hence, the combination word is Bakemonogatari, Ghostory. Nifty! (Can’t help it, I adore Japanese wordplay despite my limited understanding of them.) Anyway, the story line seemed alright to me too since it deals with ghosts and supernatural stuff, just my cup of tea. So I’m expecting some ghostly stories… typical of the kinds you get in Summer, nothing special. Boy am I sorely mistaken. Bakemonogatari is ANYTHING but ORDINARY, it is just BEWILDERING.

Ok, a quick introduction to Bakemonogatari is probably needed for some. “Bakemonogatari centers on Koyomi Araragi, a third year high school student who is almost human again after briefly becoming a vampire. One day, a classmate named Hitagi Senjōgahara, who infamously never talks to anyone, falls down the stairs into Koyomi’s arms. He discovers that Hitagi weighs next to nothing, in defiance of physics. After being threatened by her, Koyomi offers her help, and introduces her to Meme Oshino, a middle-aged homeless man who helped him stop being a vampire.” (Taken from Anime News Net) That said, let’s go into the review of it.

The opening stunned me. Check this out.

(O.O) ZOMG. Barely six seconds into it and I was already given a full upskirt panty shot. Pink lace!!! GAWD. I was half-tempted to just press the cancel button. “Not another anime targeted at hormonal fanboys!” Anyway I pressed on and braced myself  for an onslaught of camera angles deliberately directed at boob shots, butt shots and the blah blah blah. It didn’t come… ok it did, that was later and they were artistically done. (>.^) The execution of the opening was very very unique, the only reason why I bore through with the panty shot. The slow progressive scene of a boy and girl passing by each other on the opposite side of the road really caught my attention; it was so strangely peculiar.

I guess I was rewarded for not being too quick to judge. The opening was grotesque, artistically and beautifully grotesque. The abstract display of blood, mutilated bodies and random words flashing rapidly with the accompaniment of pounding music was a visual and audio assault. 

But the anime was bewildering. Utterly incomprehensible. I was given random shots, girls falling from the sky, long drawn conversations, strange characters… It was really mind-boggling. I found myself going, I don’t understand this at all!!! It was like a really abstract and darker version of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (as if Setsubou was not abstract and bewildering enough) BUT! If you press on, you will get drawn into the plot development and the interesting execution of the graphics. 

Bakemonogatari is something different and it takes patience to really appreciate it. First of all, the anime is rather slow moving. It gives really abstract shots that focus on landscapes, silhouettes, close ups, backgrounds and even random objects, leaving you BEWILDERED. Secondly, plot is developed by character conversation, thus they are long drawn, once again, leaving you BEWILDERED. Thirdly, the anime reveals hints and glimpses of things that are crucial to later plot development (you never really notice it till it hits you later), so till you notice them later, you remain BEWILDERED. Lastly, one of its major attractions lies in its wordplay, puns and spoofs of other anime or anime in general. For example, there is a blatant spoof of Full Metal Alchemist in one of the conversations. In another, the heroine openly discusses her “anime characteristics”, commenting that characters like her are usually labelled as “tsundere”. Humor is dry and subtle most of the time.

Bakemonogatari is not your run of the mill kinda anime. It is strange, peculiar, different and pleasantly (or not, depending on your tastes and preferences) surprising. Each “Ghostory” reveals a lesson of sort at the end of the day, and they are pretty good “revelations” (Note episode 2). Kinda reminiscent of Natsume Yuujincho but much, I repeat, MUCH darker. You don’t get the light fluffy feeling you’d get in Natsume. No way in hell. But it is good! However, the only thing I’m afraid is that it might get repetitive… aka Jigoku Shoujo kind of repetition *roll eyes* I don’t think it might be the case though. The stories are supposedly interconnected, so there might be some general plot to hold everything together… But I guess only time can tell.

Verdict? Watch it. I highly recommend it. Give it at least 2 episodes worth of your time. It just might prove to worth every minute of your time, as it did mine.

I’m so out of touch with the animes that are running this summer, heck, I’ve yet to finish or catch up with the spring ones. Hatsukoi, Sengoku Basara, Shangri La (is it over yet?), Pandora Hearts, 07 Ghosts and yes, Guin Saga. Honestly speaking, I was intending to drop this one. But me being me, I thought oh what the heck, I’ve downloaded it so might as well watch it! Man am I glad I did! I was reminded once again what makes Guin Saga a good epic fantasy anime!

The first arc ended nicely with plenty of changes and new character introductions, leading us right into the second arc. Epic battles are giving way to more political intrigue (oh my senses are tingling), conspiracies, hidden agenda etc etc… Some characters are developing very nicely. I love how the princess is losing her cool and is so obviously smitten with leopard man Guin. I love how the twin, the prince is turning from prince emo to prince darkness.. AND OH I LOVE THE NEW CHARACTERS! *Points to above. Prince Naris is HAWTNESS, but he is a man whore. He’ll flirt with anything that has boobs. Yeah, so this story is gradually becoming pretty PG? Or more? We have a full grown man kissing the 14 yr old princess when she was unconscious, a Princess/General with dominatrix tendencies, and a Prince Naris who flirts and seduces all the freaking time. Children friendly? No idea. But anyways, the second arc begins with sniffles of this and that. Meaning, you only catch glimpses of possible plot/character development and are left guessing most of the time till it unfurls (9 episodes more, plenty of time to guess!) 

This aside, I did some research about the novels. I was surprised! Never knew it was such a well-acclaimed novel! 126 volumes with 21 side stories, currently standing as the world’s longest single authored series! WOW. Well, the sad thing is, the author passed away in May this year… so we’ll never get to know the ending… And apparently, the later part of the series introduces elements of yaoi!!! OMG. Who? WHO?WHO? I’m dying to know!!! But this is like what, 126 volumes!? In japanese? My god, I am already  struggling to read Shonen Onmyouji in Japanese… How the hell can I read epic novels like that? I’m just shocked that this is not some run of the mill kind of fantasy story, but one so widely acclaimed (said to compare with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, my favourite book of all time!)

I am intrigued and hooked. That said, I shall continue this series to the full course of 26 episodes in the running. Anyone who has the stomach for epic fantasies should really try too. Oh I forgot to mention, the music arrangement for this anime is the cherry on top of the cake. It is well, for a lack of a better word, EPIC. *grins*

Huuzah WHAT THE F*CK!!!??? 

(O.O)No shit! No shit! No shit! This is getting so awesome! Kishimoto, you are DA BOMB. But seriously, I can’t wait for Danzo to just blardy die (after you Sasuke, you’re on my no.1 death list). You’re about half dead anyway so, ain’t it a little to late for politicking? So that eye of his has the Sharingan (when all along I thought he looks kinda like the baddie from Kenshin)… Mmmn… I wonder about that hand of his??? What else has he up his sleeve??? Haha… Anyway, this week’s Bleach is awesome too. Surprise surprise… *roll eyes* It’s like a major showfest, yeah, showing us how crappy the entire Gotei 13 is. They just get owned left right and center. So Kubo Tite is hurrying along to reveal all the Bankais, I assume the series will come to an end after this. (Please, just end. Stop milking the cash cow anymore, it is not lactating for quite some time in case you have no noticed…) So, what are you looking forward to for Bleach? Apart from 1) more lazy artwork. Strips of black and white splashed across the pages? C’mon… if you wanna slack, have some subtlety thanks. And 2) Hideous, seriously, hideous shikais and bankais from both Arrancar and Gotei 13… My eyes my eyes!!! Have mercy on them! What happened to aesthetics!!!??? They’re all so so godammned UGLY. That being said… I look forward to…

The Vizards of course!!! 

JAN JAN! Looking good, hot stuffs!

I swear the Vizards are all TSUNDERE characters. Ichigo= OBVIOUS CASE. Shinji= If you really don’t care, why bother talking to Yamamoto??? *roll eyes* Lisa= Ooooh!!! Lisa X Shunsui!!! We have a romance here!!! Watch out Nanao-chan! Someone does SM better than you!  Kensei= Please… Yaoi moment for me. The subtle head turn towards Hisagi, ooooh… I like it!

Can’t wait for the next installment. Kick Aizen’s ass, Vizards! (Did I mention Aizen oozes SEX APPEAL???? Swoons…)

Making Mum proud!

I’ve graduated! Alas! It had been four years of academic cramming and brain sloshing with all those last-minute essay submitting, overnight bunking in school, pre and post exam panic attacks and the blah blah blahh… It’s finally all over! Today’s my commencement day, my GRADUATION from NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences as a Political Science Hons grad!

Plenty of cam-whoring with the classmates before the commencement, during the commencement and after the commencement! The flashing was almost paparazzi-ish~ Ha.The PS babes~ Shamima commented that I took a picture with ALL the Indian girls in PS. I didn’t even realize that till she pointed it out! Aren’t they pretty!? And here is Sana, giving the valediction speech! You go girl!!!

President Nathan on stage, surrounded by brain juices of the finest grade.

I was praying that I don’t fall on stage and make a fool out of myself. I didn’t fall but neither was I a swan… Pumps became loose and I almost left my shoes on stage while walking to the President. Saved and Safe! But boo… I think I must have walked funny trying to keep the shoes on my feet!

The balloons and confetti were showered upon the guests (why not the graduates!?) Guess the families enjoyed the commencement more than the grads. THE PARENTS waited their entire life for this moment I’m sure. After the commencement, it was Let’s Stalk the Professors and Coerce them into Endless Photo-Taking!!! My favourite profs!

Prof Luke O’Sullivan who helped me so much throughout the last three sems… For making political theory my favourite part of PS curriculum and for introducing to me Derrida! Rhetoric was by far the best class I ever had!

Prof Leigh Jenco for accepting my post-modernism and Derrida blahblah in class and still gave me awesome grades for it! I hunted her down after the commencement and insisted that she keeps her gown on so I can take a pic with her. She looked so cute in it! I couldn’t help it!

Prof Terry Nardin. His class was one of the hardest and most challenging classes I’ve ever taken, but it yielded so much fulfillment. I was given absolute freedom for my paper topic which of course, I wrote on postmodernism in IR theories! And final exam was to write imaginary dialogues between two political thinkers on a given specific topic. How cool was that?! Difficult? Hell yeah. Fun? You have no idea. 

What’s graduation without a good pint of beer? Ok, that was a half pint. We were running out of time. 

Here comes the valedictorian! Sana! It was a good speech babe.

Off with the graduation robes but the cam-whoring continues!!! I love these group pictures! 

And what’s a good graduation without something really naughty??? As I was about to pack and go, Jay came in and said, “We gotta fulfill Gen’s secret fantasies.” Then he knelt down, asked me to put a leg over and called the other guys who knew about my yaoi fetishes to join in. Lol. They didn’t do anything BL but it was loads of fun! !

The event photographer came over and was snapping pictures away like crazy. He got really excited seeing something crazy going on, so he started directing us for a photo shoot. Ha. He was egging me on, “Hey, grab his tie!!! No wait! Grab ALL of their ties!!!” and then the boys, “You gotta look like you REALY ENJOY IT!” In the end, that’s what I got on my cam. The dominatrix in me was unleashed!! I hope the pictures that the photographer took don’t end up anyway in the school’s website or anything… er…. I swear Jay is our local version of Hard Gay!!! He is enjoying this way too much!!! LOL!

And it comes to the climax of the commencement day! The classic albeit somewhat cliche throw-your-mortarboards-and-cheer thing.

Love the angle. I think it’s a beautiful shot. Not done by me, duh. My camera sucks. This is courtesy of resident photographer for the commencement ceremonies. Looks cool eh! However, the scrambling to retrieve our mortarboards after it had been thrown was nowhere as glam as this shot. It was ridiculously hilarious watching a bunch of heavily robed people running after mortarboards falling a few feet away and going “Heey! This isn’t mine! My head can’t fit into this!” “Eh, that is mine!!!” “No, that’s mine. This is yours!” “Who took my mortarboard!?” The throwing and jumping was fun, NOT the aftermath of it. 

The look on our faces when we were asked to throw it a second time. 3, 2, 1 Throw and Jump! The heat was really unbearable. Can you imagine wearing those layers of fabric in a 32-4 degree Celsius heat?

Commencement was really fun, did not expect it to be at all! I guess I’ll really miss my college life, friends and NUS after all… Congratulations, class of 2009! Keep in touch for the long road ahead! 

Political Science Cohort of 2009

                                                                                                                                                                                                      XOXO Genevieve

This girl is dangerous… and I’m loving it. 

I said this before but I’m gonna whine about it again. This babe is coming to Singapore on Aug 12th and I’m going to miss her since I’ll be in Japan then. I’m so upset about this, seriously tearing my hair out. She’s craaaazzzy on stage, her stage aesthetics are out of this world. Pyrotechnics, fire-spitting bras, iPod sunglasses, magic sticks and not to forget, her unique and oh so haute couture wardrobe. I’m so having a crush on her… *swoons* I hope I can catch her in Japan or something. Lady Gaga, please come to Tokyo again! Check out her videos… she’s so yummy. 

Another King listed into the list of immortals…

No kids, not really… He ain’t dead. No, I’m not trying to cook up some conspiracy theory but look, this dude is dead? Are you kidding me? Never in his entire life had he such media coverage in the wake of his death! Can anyone of you say that the googling of your name actually slowed down internet globally? Can you say your name alone almost killed the servers of MTV, Twitter and Facebook? MJ did it. Dead literally? Yes. Dead metaphorically? Hell no! We’re seeing a MJ comeback here! He’s never been more “alive”! MJ can’t RIP. The world just won’t let him. 

The King of Pop is dead.

Long live the King.

It’s Gaara, bitches!

Naruto got me all excited again! Man, I really love this manga. It’s like taking a roller coaster ride.

So, the entire Paine arc was giving me heart attacks. I was ready to tattoo “I love Kakashi” on my body and send hate mails to Kishimoto if Kakashi goes RIP. But then it ended with a major resurrection which you gotta admit, was PRETTY LAME. But I’m not gonna complain, I have Kakashi back and that’s all I care about. And then there’s Sasuke which… OMG, will he just die already!? That emo bastard. So yeah, Sasuke realised that he got no Konoha to destroy anymore so he’s like, “Oh darn. Someone beat me to razing my ex-village to the ground.” So guess what? He changed his plans, AGAIN. Seriously, how many more chapters of Sasuke related crap must I endure? This guy really needs his prozac.

Just when I was getting pissed and bored, Kishimoto dropped DA BOMB. Gaara!!! *swoons* The fangirl in me is screaaaaaming. Gaara! Gaara! Gaara!!! Khol-eyed, red haired, former pyschopathic killer is back! Gaara is back~~~! I already said that eh? Ha. And god, he is so hawt. Kishimoto really knows how to work his fans up. Alright, I’m gonna go back to stare at Gaara and swoon some more.