pira

Peddling away on the bike at teh gym. Reading Volume 7 of Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki's The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service

We find three of our heroes out on yet another errand, and upon entering an enormous, multi-leveled, gaming/manga/anime complex (like Akihabara under one roof) one of them quips:

"I've heard of this place. It's like a five-story ant farm for Otaku"

.....I couldn't help it. I laughed aloud (more than once) today at the gym.

Sorry sildil...I'm keeping this series. It's too good for teenagers. >D

Last night I was trying to find a particular manga. I'm usually pretty darned good about keeping this stuff organized, if not catalogued and in it's proper place ~ I do recall taking this one particular volume off the yaoi shelf in order to wallow in a storyline and now I can't seem to put my hands on it.

It will of course turn up, but while I was searching for it I noted the piles of books around my side of the bed had become precariously tall again, helped no doubt by the fact that I'd removed many from the dangerously stacked bathroom shelf to make room for current reading and placed them at the bedside in passing....so I quickly sorted out the manga/books that could be shelved and re-shuffled the other volumes on the night table at least.

I have actually been yoinked out of R.E.M sleep by guerrila attacks of books before, so it was best to get the circus act under control before it became a hazard to my beauty rest. =__=

Having said that ~ the weeded-out volumes were merely moved to the floor until I can sort them and file them according to genre/title....and I allowed myself a moment of reflection on the fact that this really is sheer madness, before dismissing the thought and wrapped myself up in cloak of denial once more.

Hence I had to pause and swallow a bit nervously at news of the FATE of this Otaku.....

Man in Sendai found dead buried in his manga

The Miyagi Prefectural Police have found a 37 year old man dead in his apartment in Sendai buried under several hundred manga and magazines. They’re currently investigating the case under suspicion that his death was an accident triggered by the Northeastern Japan earthquake on the 14th.

The man apparently had books stacked up to 2 meters tall on all sides and the police suspect that he was in the middle surrounded by books when the books toppled and crushed him, with the weight of the books pushing against his chest and stomach to cause him to be unable to breathe.

....I don't know wheather to laugh or cry. Not at him...but rather, the thought of dying under that. It's like a plot out of a manga story..literally. I've joked about dying this way...but seriously...it happens? @_@!!

I just finished catching up on the recently released subs of Naruto Shippuden and loved the fangirling they did regarding Naruto's first kiss ~ and couldn't help but howl when the boys all got into a ...what was it Rock Lee called it?? ...a "maled-friendship-bonding fist-fight"?...and it reminded me of when I was in Kyoto & stumbled unexpectedly into a shop that was floor to ceiling Otaku crap.

I mean it was stuffed to overflowing with all the little cell toggles, PVC girlies, gashaphon collector items, and random toys you could ever dream of. My brain just about broke and I struggled for restaint. I was here for the culture NOT the pop-culture. I was purposely NOT in Akiba or Ikebukero but rather the cultural heart of the country....but an otaku is an otaku....

I found the Gundams I was looking to bring back for Teh Sprog, but I also picked up some of 3" high ninjas: Kakashi & Iruka (which made my fangirl heart pitter-patter) and to my great joy Sai, from Naruto Shippuuden ~ as well as and the cell toggles from the same series, with Yamato and Sai :) Seriously....I was a very good girl.

The name of the store was Super Position, and I had to wonder about that. Random as the Japanese are about their use of English for store names...that was a bit too esoteric....then I found this:

Superposition is defined as "The principle by which the description of the state of a physical system can be broken down into descriptions that are themselves possible states of the system. For example, harmonic motion, as of a violin string, can be analyzed as the sum of harmonic frequencies or harmonics, each of which is itself a kind of harmonic motion; harmonic motion is therefore a superposition of individual harmonics"

If one was to consider the entire culture surrounding Manga and Anime ~ the otaku and their obsessive collecting, the merchandizing machine that feeds their needs and the doujinshi products that further drives the original material to higher frenzied heights of popularity...it makes sense.

*0__o......kinda-sorta.....if you squint real hard.


...yeah, anyway I'm going to go to bed now and stop thinking about this before I cause myself braindamage contemplating Japanese traditional culture and it's ripple effect on manga/anime and how that in turn affects what is defined as Japanese culture within and outside the country ....

My Yuki Nagato Neko girl figure (points at catalogue image) finally arrived yesterday, and she's too adorable for words. Standing 8 1/2" (21 cm) high I just feel all giggly every time I look at her :)

I've seen a lot of neko-gals over the years, but they are mostly over the top Hentai, while this particular one just oozes sweet playfulness. The proportions, design, colouring are all perfect! I am more than happy with the pvc kitty and commend Bandai for producing such a nice piece.

I am of course sliding fast into otaku-figurine hell....*glances lovingly at SnapP Konoe who arrived at the same time. Purrrs contentedly*

Yep. I totally lose on the *don't-buy-anymore-useless-crap* front. When it comes to anime-like nekos I am utterly owned by the industry that is pumping this stuff out. >__<

The week has seen me descend into the mindmush-pit of a sinus cold....you know the place. Lights on but nobody home. Attempt to focus on the printed word and wonder why your brain can't process the gibberish and when it can, it forgets it as soon as you take your eyes off the page. The most coherent thought I could muster yesterday was in the evening, as I sat on the couch watching the animated version of Superman Doomsday on television....and thinking, *That is the ugliest character design I've EVAH seen for Supes in my life....*

I did though,finally succumb and use a product that I'd been avoiding because of an aversion to having water go up my nose and into the sinuses...and what a FOOL I've been all these years! My nursing-student friend has been pimping this product to me for ages, and after a night of only kind-a-sorta sleeping I was having visions of revisiting last years' sinus infection that had me *holds finger and thumb together* thiiiiiis close to offing myself...

...DUDE! This stuff is GREAT! Uncomfortable yes...but what a rush! AND I'm not just talking about the wicked stream of warm saline solution into my head....I actually felt better immediately. It's not a cure ~ but my goodness it does help take the edge off the ache around the eyes and hopefully it will keep any ick from settling in for the kill!

Well it's snowing...a LOT and I've shovelled 4 x today and am looking at about 10 more HOURS of this shite ...so I have to say... I am DONE with winter already. DONE I SAY! I am suiting up and going groundhog hunting, and when I find the little lying bastard I'm going to throttle him!!!

*tromps off to shovel some more and will reward self with a chai lattes *

...you know I am burning off more calories than I am ingesting. Those lattes, while generally deadly are just keeping me even....literally. In fact I'm probably running a deficit (0__0)

....WHAT IS IT WITH ME?

Having left my last feedback from holiday shopping on ebay ~ I am now vowing (don't laugh) to avoid the place till after my trip in May. I have removed the link from my toolbar in Firefox and buried it in the bookmarks.

The stupid thing gets me into no end of trouble ~ see I was casting about this morning, just plonking mindless words into the search engine while killing time before the coffee shop opened and I could wander down there to pick up my java and a NY Times (they get 3 copies on Sunday and it's walking distance to pick it up).

Now I was being good. Having resolved to avoid anything remotely kimono-ish on ebay I somehow landed myself in furoku and found myself staring down the 2008 desk calendar that comes with the January edition of Asuka....

Naturally I was curious how much the magazine was going for if this person was hoping to make a buck on the furoku... that led me by the nose to Animenation and before I could stop myself I'd purchased a copy of the magazine with furoku intact and for good measure a Kakashi tshirt because...you can never have too many black tshirts with hot ninja on them.

*head desk*

...at least I'll wear that to the gym.

I'm possibly the ONLY person that wears ANIME shirts at that ladies gym...*puffs up chest proudly*. Everyone else is co-ordinated to the eyeteeth in name brand work out gear OR wearing t-shirts that say they jogged/ran/walked/crawled some fundraiser. I prefer menacing looking young males, wielding sharp pointy objects in your face. (Inuyasha, Saiyuki boys, ....Kakashi-sama...you get the drift)

But I digress ~ the point is that I should have been satisfied with the Clamp desk calendar that came with the wall mounted one ~ but for some bizarre reason I have found the darned thing to be too cutsie for words.

Of course this IS Clamp we are talking about....but still. (.__(. I had rather hoped the images would be at the very least...seasonal like my BeansA calendar this year...

I did not of course also purchase THIS at Akadot (damn you Tameiki)

Nope-nope. Not I.

(.__(.

.)__.)

....

>___<


...of course you know I lied.