Note to Self

I’ve been looping this song like crazy for the last two or three days now. God bless Pandora for continuing to throw good songs on my radar.

• Listen to The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus - Your Guardian Angel on YouTube

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I have a higher quality version of this scan saved, but I just really liked the caption Because man, these characters are seriously some of the most tortured out of CLAMP’s whole repertoire. After the whole reveal with Syaoran I tried to mentally prepare myself for a huge bummer in Fay’s past. Still killed me when I got there, it was so freaking disturbing/depressing. But now Fay is definitely one of my favorite characters ever xD

Image courtesy of One Manga.

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Since I’ve more or less caught up with my current anime episodes and am just waiting for the final subs of the final episodes, I decided to indulge in some manga and dived into Tsubasa. I had gotten up to volume 11 or so back when I was last in Taiwan, but haven’t read anything since. Picking it up this time I actually started a loong ways back at volume 4. And things were moving along quite happily with the worlds-hopping, feathers-collecting, budding romance between Syaoran and Sakura “formula” if you will. Until chapter 120 onwards that is, and then it was like WAM. CLAMP fucking kicked in and went, oh wait, we’re CLAMP, we freaking love messing with and messing up our characters, indulging in some pretty-boy violence and making people bleed bucket-loads. TIME TO THROW IN THE DOUBLE-WHAMMY!

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It’s amazing how quickly my recent burning adoration for Macross Frontier turned to utter hatred in the space of one episode… or at least, utter hatred of some of the characters lol.

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I loved Eureka 7, and I especially like the episode titles. Maybe because so many of them came from song titles, even though I know very few of the songs. I had a crazy idea at one point to try to do a wall for every episode title. That’s 50 episodes and I’ve only done one so far, so I kinda doubt it’ll ever happen. Still, I’ve kept the list on hand just in case I’ll ever need them someday ;D

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I just finished watching episode 6 of Macross Frontier, after looping some of Macross Frontier’s songs. One of the reason why I’m enjoying M.F. is because I adore Yoko Kanno, and I think anything she touches is made of gold and win. I can’t say I’m as big of a fan of Macross Frontier’s soundtrack as some of her other OSTs though, partially because the story calls for a lot of pop and there’s only so many ways to make pop sound innovative/awesome.

This is not to say I hate the songs… I’m looping “What ’bout my star” right now, especially the beginning; the other songs will probably really grow on me in time too. The background orchestral tracks though hasn’t blown me away as much as usual. Also, one of the tracks used in episode 6 really reminded me of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. It was another one of those moments (like the V for Vendetta-like scene in Code Geass) that became rather distracting, because I couldn’t stop thinking “zomg, Pirates, seriously!”

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After reaching the second Excalibur-filler episode of Soul Eater, I decided to take a break from Soul Eater for a while (that damn holy sword really manages to be insanely annoying!) and started on Code Geass R2. And it immediately sucked me in (again). I freaking love watching two antagonists with strong world beliefs go at each other - the pleasure I get from watching Lelouche and Suzaku is very similar to the feeling I get with Light from Death Note. As bad as Light is, you can’t fault him for not going all out on what he believes in. And in my book determination and all-out action are what elevates characters to serious badass-ness.

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I’m currently addicted to OneRepublic’s “Prodigal”. Actually, I’ve been addicted to my OneRepublic Pandora station; I love all of their songs (”Apologize” remains one of my favorite songs ever). I had heard “Prodigal” on Pandora before, but for some reason today it prompted YouTubing and continuous non-stop looping. I should invest in some more of OneRepublic’s songs on iTunes ; -;

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Here’s a Nodame Cantabile playlist… some of my favorite pieces from Lesson 106 to Lesson 118 ; D;

Lesson 106 - The second half of Nodame’s salon concert

Liszt - Legendes, “St Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds”

Lesson 112 - Tanya’s first preliminary performances for the Canton International Competition

Bach - Well-tempered Clavier, Book 1: Prelude and Fugue no. 22 in B-Flat minor

Lesson 118 - One of Nodame’s lesson pieces for Auclair sensei
Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 31 in A Flat, op.110 1st movement

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I did a bit of internal screaming when Vampire Knight ended at episode 13. I’m not sure if the anime ended as strongly as it started, but I was still hooked enough to hunt down the manga and marathon it until about 4AM on a workday. I couldn’t believe they broke the anime up into two seasons Dx I guess it’s mainly because the manga hadn’t finished yet. The manga definitely grew on me a lot more than when I first flipped through vol. 1 at Borders; I also really enjoyed the big twist-reveal about Yuuki and am dying to find out about what happens next.

So with Vampire Knight temporarily done I was at a bit of a loss about what to watch/read next. Not to say that I don’t have a full watch/readlist right now, but I wanted to pick up something that can really hold my attention like Vampire Knight did. So I picked up Nodame Cantabile manga from where I dropped off, and it’s STILL AWESOME. Most people who know me knows that I freaking love this series to death, having watched anime, manga, and live action - I just can’t get enough of this series, it’s definitely an absolute favorite. I’ve forgotten some of the finer details of the story since I took a pretty long hiatus from the manga, but the plot is still going strong with quite a few threads creeping in with the appearance of Chiaki’s father. I’ve had so many laugh-out-loud moments reading the manga… usually whenever characters go into blank-eyed angsty/moody mode… or when Chiaki (fondly) imagines Nodame in weirdo forest mode… seriously FTW stuff.

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