Nihil's Stream Of Insanity

[Nihil Obstat]

The software let you down this time. :hehe:

[Nihil Obstat]

It has been a while since I posted anything anime related. These are the two most recent shows of which I have partook:

 

Maria-sama ga Miteru (aka The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us):

 

Hardcore shoujo-ai slice of life story about an all-girls school which has a unique student mentor culture by which older students take on younger students as their 'little sisters' (petites soeur). Main character Yumi is asked to become the petite soeur to a second-year student who is in turn the little sister of one of the 'Lady Roses' of the student council, giving her a place on the student council herself. Lots of melodrama and light, unobtrusive themes. Pleasant and relaxing. Its reputation for yuri themes is, in my opinion, highly exaggerated to the point of being entirely fiction.

 

 

Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

 

Basically the exact opposite of Maria-sama. Young Japanese man wakes up in California with no memory and is forced to become an assassin named Zwei for the secretive Inferno criminal organization, under the tutelage of "Phantom", also called Ein, the brainwashed assassin prodigy girl also used by Inferno and her direct superior, Scythe Master. The plot follows Zwei's rise and fall in Inferno, his struggle to regain his memory and redemption for the evil he takes part in, and his hope to save Ein. Very violent, intricate plot, very good characters, and superb use of music to set the mood.

 

Edited January 5, 2014 by Nihil Obstat

[Not The Philosopher]

Does, "The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us" actually wind up engaging with Catholicism in some form or another, or is it just the usual anime window-dressing?

[Nihil Obstat]

Does, "The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us" actually wind up engaging with Catholicism in some form or another, or is it just the usual anime window-dressing?

Interesting question. It is somewhere in between. Catholicism is more a setting or a backdrop, but it is treated very respectfully. I get the sense that the writer(s) do not have a huge amount of knowledge of the faith, but that they do appreciate it from what they do know.

Rosaries play a role as the symbol of the bond between two soeurs, and there is a kind of vague awareness on the writers' part of its status as Catholic prayer beads.There is a fairly strong, though subtle and understated sense in which the school's devotion to the Blessed Virgin requires a higher standard of morality from the students there.

If you are familiar with Brideshead Revisited, there might be some comparison there. Obviously Evelyn Waugh was very knowledgeable about the faith, while I think these writers are not, but there is the same sense of Catholicism as a meaningful context for the story, and a valuable cultural patrimony, so to speak.

 

There is a different show I watched with very Catholic themes. It is set in the early or mid sixties, and two of the main characters are devout Catholics. It is still a fairly understated theme, but the importance of his Catholic faith is actually the driving force behind one of the main characters. That show is Kids on the Slope, Sakamichi no Apollon. 

 

 

If you look closely, the guy in the foreground is wearing a rosary under his shirt. In this show there is a very strong sense of the rosary as a symbol of the Catholic faith, and personal devotion.

[Not The Philosopher]

Eeenteresting. I may have to check it out at some indeterminate point in the future.

[Nihil Obstat]

Speaking of anime, there are three shows (one is actually a movie) which I would classify as being the saddest, and all also happen to be some of my favourites.
 
Clannad:
Starts out looking like a fairly standard mid 2000s comedy-romance-slice of life VN adaptation. If you are into that, then the first seasons is really well done. But it really hits its stride in the latter half of the second season with some absolutely brutal episodes involving central characters who, by thirty-odd episodes in, you are generally pretty attached to. The central theme of Clannad is family, especially the importance of family and unconditional love. One excellent theme was the main character's transition from being the child of a family, to the head of his own, and the growth and responsibility that accompany that.
 


Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai, aka AnoHana, aka The Flower We Saw That Day:
 

The premise is that the main character, Jinta, wakes up one summer day to find that his deceased childhood friend, Menma, has appeared to him, and nobody else can see her. Menma and Jinta try to find out why she has come back, and start reconnecting with their group of friends which slowly drifted apart after her death. Over the course of the show, all of the main characters have to come to terms with Menma's death ten years ago, and we see how their regrets and guilt affected them over time. The sadness is kind of a slow undercurrent for most of the show, but really takes hold in the last couple episodes, especially the very last one, which were very powerfully done.

 

 

5cm Per Second:

 

Most people probably would not agree, but this one for me tops my list of saddest shows, and is probably also my favourite anime movie. It is just over one hour, which does not seem like a lot, but it told precisely the story it set out to tell. I do wish there was more of it, just because I really love it, but the movie itself is more effective with most things left unsaid. It is laid out as three self-contained stories which are (broadly) about the same characters over separate points in time. It also has some of the best artwork I have ever seen in an anime.

In the first story we are introduced to the two main characters, a boy and girl who became very close in elementary school, before the girl had to move away. Now about a year or two down the road, they have planned for the boy to make the long trip down by train to see her again, and he plans on telling her how he feels. They had kept in touch by letter writing, but there is a sense in which they are drifting apart from how close they had been before. His trains are delayed by an enormous winter storm, so most of this story is marked by frustrated introspection and memory.

The second story takes place a little bit later, with the characters now in high school. It is from the perspective of a new character, a classmate of the boy, who has had a crush on him since they met. She wants to tell him how she feels but is struggling to find the courage to do so. Most of this story examines the distance between the two of them. The reason seems to be that the boy is still thinking about the girl from before. Since this section is from someone else's point of view we do not find out explicitly, but it seems that he is now out of touch with the previous girl, but still hung up on her, and possibly regretting their distance.

The third story now has the boy established in the workforce as a computer programmer, but still wondering about his old friend. It seems that rather than coming to terms with his regret, he has allowed it to slowly get worse and worse over time, and he seems depressed and listless. We also see her point of view, as she is preparing to be married, and thinking back on her life so far.

The movie has a 'happy ending' of sorts (happy in that the main character seems to find some closure), again very understated, but I am more inclined to call it bittersweet and melancholy than happy per se. For some reason 5cm really works with me on a deep level. The feelings that they explore just seem to resonate perfectly with feelings I have experienced. Besides that, the music is a perfect complement to the plot and the artwork, and the artwork itself, as I said, is brilliant. I find that I cannot even watch it as much as I would like, because every time I do I end up in a really melancholic, nostalgic mood. Most people do not react in precisely the same way to this movie, but for me it just nails it every time.

It is only an hour long, so if you have any interest whatsoever, please watch it and tell me what you think.

 

Part 1:

 

Part 2:

 

Part 3:

[Nihil Obstat]

I finished all of Maria-sama ga Miteru earlier today. Really solid ending. Now I am sad because I have grown kind of attached to the characters, but now I have to move on and find a new show to watch.

My biggest motivation in watching anime is finding that next show that strikes me at the time as being just perfect, being exactly what I wanted to watch at that point in time. It has happened a few times... Toradora, 5cm Per Second, Kokoro Connect, Hidan no Aria... But it is rare. And the more I watch, the less likely I am to find those perfect shows, because eventually I might exhaust the supply of previously-aired stuff. :P

[Nihil Obstat]

Toko and Yumi. :proud:
 

[Nihil Obstat]

Went back to class today. First class is a junior philosophy, which I am taking just for GPA. I am way overqualified for it. One of those classes that assumes nobody has taken philosophy before. Probably should not slack too much though, because there may be more reading than I am used to.

Other class today was part two of Chinese. Feeling really good about it, and I like the professor so far.

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

Went back to class today. First class is a junior philosophy, which I am taking just for GPA. I am way overqualified for it. One of those classes that assumes nobody has taken philosophy before. Probably should not slack too much though, because there may be more reading than I am used to.

Other class today was part two of Chinese. Feeling really good about it, and I like the professor so far.

 

I know I am a term late in asking this, but why Chinese? With all your anime stuff, I would have expected Japanese.

 

Plus, isn't Japanese easier because it isn't tonal? Do you sing well enough to get the Chinese tones right?

 

Back to, why Chinese? (Although, if you're still thinking of business, China is a business market with more potential than Japan right now.)

 

Either that, or you're insane. (Which we knew already.) :cool:

 

Love to Katy, who is a saint.  :angel:

[Nihil Obstat]

Chinese is easier in terms of word order. Japanese is somewhat easier for pronunciation in terms of tones. Both about equal for phonetics. Japanese is slightly more self explanatory in that sense though. Writing systems... Chinese maybe has the edge there. I also think Chinese has a slight aesthetic edge.
The biggest edge though is that Chinese is more useful for me. Japanese is a great language and I would love a chance to learn it, but Chinese is more practical.

[Nihil Obstat]

I do not find the tones particularly challenging in and of themselves. Pronouncing them is not too difficult. What is more difficult is just remembering which tones go with which words. Basically it is just an extra element of spelling.

[Nihil Obstat]

Forgot my textbook in the classroom over the weekend, so I was not able to study. :sweat: Luckily my studying from over the break was good enough for today's quiz.

I mixed up the proper order for representing dates though. I would have done that anyway, because I would not have thought to go over it again.

I wrote that the day was 二0一四年，星期一，一月二十日， but I think it was supposed to be 二0一四年，一月二十日，星期一。

But I wrote all the characters correctly. It helps that I find many of them to be really aesthetically enjoyable to write. Especially something like 喜欢， xihuan, meaning "to like", or 电影和电视， dianying he dianshi, "movies and television". 

I do not really enjoy writing my Chinese name though. Not that I dislike it. I just find it kind of boring. 贝觉世， Bei Jue-shi. It is a nice name. I like its pronunciation and its meaning. I just find the characters themselves a bit boring to write.

[Nihil Obstat]

昨天在图书馆小王很高兴认识了小高.小高很高也很漂亮。小王请小高去星巴客喝咖啡。三点小王在星巴客喝了两杯咖啡，还喝一瓶可乐，四点半小高才来。小王很不高兴。他只请小高喝一小瓶水。

 

pwnd. :|

 

Yesterday at the library, Xiao Wang was very happy to meet Xiao Gao. Xiao Gao is very tall and pretty. Xiao Wang invited Xiao Gao to go to Starbucks to drink coffee. At 3:00 Xiao Wang at Starbucks drank two cups of coffee, and also drank a bottle of cola, Xiao Gao didn't come until 4:30. Xiao Wang was very unhappy. He only offered Xiao Gao a small bottle of water.

[Nihil Obstat]

明天生词：

 

平常

æ—©

这么

晚

早上

功课

大家

上课

开始

念

课文

录音

学习

帅

é…·