This Winter

Hey look, it's actually a Friday update! Winter Quarter's only one week in and it's already kicking my butt, haha. But I'm sanguine about the upcoming quarter. My classes are interesting and (all minus one) of my professors seem like awesome people. I really need to stop spending every spare moment doing silly stuff (like rereading Busted for the millionth time. But who can resist? Jon Wisnewski= <3 XD)

This post contains my comments on stuff I read/ watched/ played this past winter break. It isn't eloquently written at all. It's more like a rant on stuff I got while/ after playing/ reading them.  ECA will return next week!

I try not to spoil everything, but SPOILERS AWAIT!

All images were screenshotted from the Bastion Wiki and the Bakuman Wiki.

Finished works:

Mashiro Moritaka (blue jacket) +
Takagi Akito (red jacket) =
Ashirogi Muto

• Bakuman: Bakuman is a shonen manga about making manga and mangaka. Protagonists Mashiro Moritaka and Takagi Akito--the artist and writer duo that make up Ashirogi Muto--are aspiring mangaka. The action is brilliantly paced, making the story impossible to put down.
  
  Romance: (Because we all know I love romancy shoujo fluff) Mashiro makes a deal with the girl he likes, Azuki Miho: when Ashirogi Muto's manga becomes an anime, Azuki (an aspiring voice actress) will voice the lead female role and then they'll get married. However, until they achieve their goals, they cannot hang out or anything like that. So they end up communicating primarily by text message, an occasional phone call, and end up physically seeing each other like 3 times. I'm not sure if I like this method of dating, but it is very pure and beautiful and was super cute. I also really liked Takagi's friend/ girlfriend Miyoshi Kaya and her invaluable behind-the-scenes help to Ashirogi Muto. Her work is overlooked, I think, but her cheerful personality and effort are incredibly admirable.
  
  
  

  

  Team Fukuda

  
  Teamwork and Rivalry:
  Mashiro and Takagi's teamwork to form the pen name Ashirogi Muto was incredible. They did their best support each other and bounce ideas off each other and work to each other's strengths. That teamwork...is so beautiful. (I kinda wish I had someone that I could get along with so well, haha.) But my absolute favorite feeling from the manga was the friendly rivalry among the members of Team Fukuda, especially Mashiro's rivalry with manga genius Niizuma Eiji and Takagi's rivalry with fellow writer Iwase Aiko. These were relationships that motivated everyone onwards, to do their best and better themselves. They didn't need to give each other advice that much: simply by doing better themselves, they knew they could motivate their other mangaka friends.
  
  Bakuman definitely makes my top five manga, on par with my all-time favorites of CardCaptor Sakura, Skip Beat, and Fairy Tail. (I also wish I could read Perfect Crime Party, one of Ashirogi Muto's manga. It sounds amazing!)

The Kid

• Bastion: (SPOILERS AWAIT!!)
  Bastion is an action rpg adventure game available on a variety of platforms. In addition to a variety of weapon customization, Bastion features an interesting and thought-provoking story. I really enjoyed the narration (Logan Cunningham as Rucks!) and how the story integrates the backstory of the world of Caelondia.
  
  
  
  What struck me most about the story was the morality. The Ura are kind of demonized throughout the game. The war with them threatened the safety of Caelondia, they live underground, and they're a superstitious lot that's always getting in the way. Yet Rucks admits outright that Caelondia made some terrible moral decisions in creating the Calamity. Caelondia, not the Ura, are the cause of the end of the world, the bad guys that started this whole mess. Zulf's anger is justified (especially given he was a supporter of Caelondia before the Calamity). But now Rucks and the Kid (Caelondians) are trying to put the world back together. They're trying to make up for the mistakes of the other Caelondians who made the Calamity. The Bastion isn't at fault; it's a good thing. Now Zulf and the Ura are "the bad guys" hindering them. Or maybe there's no good and bad. And by that I don't mean that everything is morally gray, but that good and bad are kind of dotted and striped in everyone. To make a genetics reference: good and evil are codominant in everyone. Sometimes Caelondia is the bad guy. Sometimes the Ura are.
  
  

  

  Everyone.

  From left to right: the Kid, Zulf, Zia, Rucks.

  
  In the end, the moral conflict isn't really solved. Like the Kid says, "The Windbags, the beasts of the Wild, the Ura...they fought so hard to stop [the reconstruction of the Bastion]". Rucks comforts him: "Don't let anythin' you done get to you. You can save all those creatures here and now." Rucks urges the Kid towards Restoration of the old world, before the Calamity. In the end, Restoration means that all the creatures of the Wild and all the people that died in the Calamity and in the process of restoring the Cores and Shards never died. The evil done against them is justified because it was for the purpose of restoring everything. But it doesn't matter if it's justified or anything, because ultimately it doesn't matter: no one remembers. Restoration is the forgotten hope that as a civilization they'll find a path that averts the Calamity.

  Meanwhile, Zia urges the Kid towards Evacuation. So we don't get the happy no-one-needed-to-die scenario. But it means that all those deaths happened for a reason: bringing the four of them somewhere else. Evacuationis a new start, where the four of them (supposedly) have the memory and wisdom of the past to guide them forward. It's bitter, and maybe it won't go as planned, but it breaks the cycle.  Zia tells the Kid, "Any moment I'd want to live again happened after the Calamity. Not before." That's interesting. Her life before was pretty cooped up, dull and miserable, but it strikes me more that she's just found more adventure and life in the world after the Calamity than before it. The apocalypse is something to be feared. If you don't die, you'll end up in a barren wasteland of a world. But maybe, maybe the apocalypse would make things better.

  
  
• Inu x Boku Secret Service: (I watched the anime rendition.) It's cute. I don't quite like the protagonists, but I really like most of the other reoccurring characters. (Karuta is so cute! <3 She's always eating and her alternate form is a giant skeleton, and she's really adorable.) I hear that the manga goes beyond the anime plot, but don't think I'll be reading it, at least not for a while XD.
• Kaichou wa maid-sama: It finished! So I went back and reread the whole thing. Ayuzawa Misaki's fighting spirit and relentless diligence definitely motivates me, but I never got really into the cast and story as much as I did other in other mangas. It is though, very popular and quite good. The ending was pretty nice. :)

Movies (SPOILERS AWAIT!!)

• Frozen:  Frozen was great! The story was nice, the characters were funny, and the soundtrack is amazing. "Let it Go" is just a little bit of the incredible, soundtrack (Link is to the Demi Lovato version that plays at the end of the movie). I was a little put out that there had to be a betrayal and thus an actual antagonist, because I thought that it would be a lot more dramatic with no clear antagonist, but it does make for a simpler plot. That, and interestingly enough, it makes a clear stance about the love-at-first-sight/ first-love-is-true-love thing that most disney movies seem to take after. I absolutely love Elsa's ice powers, and Olaf and Sven are great comic relief. But THE SOUNDTRACK! <3
• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: After watching the first movie I went back and read the book and decided that The Hobbit really didn't need to be broken into three movies. It's a bit overkill. The elf-dwarf implied romance really was unnecessary. The dwarves fighting Smaug makes them seem a little less pointless in defeating Smaug, but really wasn't needed. That said, the Desolation of Smaug isn't bad, and Peter Jackson can definitely make great action scenes.
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire:  If you read the book, you will love the movie. The movie is done magnificently. The action and appearance of Panem is fabulous. The casting was amazing. Jena Malone as Johanna Mason was great, and performed Johanna exactly as I saw her in the book (with a lot more spunk than I could ever do). Sam Claflin didn't look like how I imagined Finnick Odair, but his performance was more than enough for me to say he was the right choice. :) In a few scenes, the movie is done line by line, perfectly as described in the book.
  
  (So this goes to show that movies can be spectacular when filmed true to the book they're based on! I'm looking at you, Percy Jackson movies. Please!)

Unfinished Manga:

• Daytime Shooting Star (Hirunaka no Ryuusei): Pretty average shoujo, but if it's adorably cute and well paced. It's light hearted and cute and the story is likeable :) Actively following this one (and reading the reader comments, because I end up reading each chapter like 3 times before the next comes out XD).
• The Gamer:  The protagonist wakes up to one day to discover his life is a video game. The concept is really interesting and the execution is pretty interesting itself. (I've been mulling about this idea for a while, but never could think of a story to put it in, so I'm really intrigued in how the story in the Gamer develops.)
• Watashi ni xx Shinasai: Another shoujo, centered around a Himuro Yukina, who is cold and observant at school, but secretly a popular cell phone novelist. When her readers mention her stories could be better with some romance, Yukina recruits the school playboy to help her experience "love". However, her cousin (and only friend) starts competing for her attention, and the playboy's childhood friends join the picture. Soon, Yukina's novel world starts blurring with her real feelings. The characters are interesting and decently strong, and I really, really love the concept. I'd like to have Yukina's dedication and talent. :)

BOTTOM LINE: PLAY BASTION. READ BAKUMAN. 
(And join me in listening to the Frozen soundtrack while waiting for Watashi ni xx Shinasai updates^.^)