Parallel Universe: If the world was my dream

Since I have become a manga addict, I also am trying out a few animes as side dishes. The most recent one I have watched was "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya". On her first day at high school the excentric Haruhi states that she has no interest in ordinary humans (I feel with her!), but if there were any aliens, time travelers, espers or the like present, they should please come forward and meet her. The boy sitting right in front of her, Kyon, is swept away (or rather kidnapped) into her whirlwind of strange and absurd activities and all kind of odd things start happening.

This anime is so daft that its stupidity clearly is founded in genius. We see most of the story from Kyons perspective and he has a dead black resigned and cynical way of relating to the world and Haruhis ideas.
There was a moment in the anime when, Koizumi, a rumoured esper says that the whole world is nothing but Haruhis dream, which means that when she is bored (or melancholic - hence the title) or having any sort of bad feelings, she unknowingly creates closed areas in which the laws of our world are not valid any more and which can threaten the existence of the whole world. Koizumi thinks that Haruhi herself is not aware that she creates her own world around her, like aliens, time travellers and espers (himself) appearing because it was Haruhis wish in the first place.
It is not really such a new idea, I am sure every kid who like me was waiting for a sign from Krypton or secret powers to finally unfold themselves (still waiting ...) has at one point encountered the concept, that what we perceive as reality is actually NOT reality but something else ... like the dream of someone, who would then probably appear as a kind of god in that world. What was new to me was thinking that it could be your own world, no excuse me - my world and that I myself could be the dreamer. (Maybe I'm just naturally humble that this possibility never came upon me before - na, just kidding, probably I had this thought before and just forgot about it. Have you noticed btw that I really like to write in brackets?)
So imagine: I am the only real person here (Yes, this sounds about right!!!). And the world as you know it is nothing but my dream. Plus therefore of course YOU are my dream. I made you up. How do you feel about that? I actually think it could be flattering not to exist because of that one sperm hitting the one egg, but because someone actually bothered to come up with your whole concept. And every time you make a stupid mistake you can lay the blame on me.
The whole idea has one major flaw: If I am currently sleeping and this whole world is my dream ... I must be a mentally disturbed person to think up Auschwitz, Saddam Hussein and plateau shoes. I'm clearly having a nightmare here, so could some one please wake me up?!

Apocalypse Now!

I'm a mother of three children, all of them in kindergarden. I used to think of myself as a calm, reflected person with an unshakeable patience. These days are gone forever though. In my pre-children life I did not even know I had it in me to scream or to lose it completely. Now I have developed into a part-time general and if your country ever needs someone to organize a small invasion - just give me a call.
The last two days our kindergarden was closed because the teachers were on training. It's times like that that makes you realize that they should be all be walking around with their chest decorated with medals for public service and peace keeping. Tomorrow kindergarten will re-open and I will be waiting at its gate at point 8.00 a.m. with all my three unruly heirs in tow. I can't wait.

Don't take me wrong, it's fun having children and I wouldn't want to miss any of my three brats. All the same they have a knack for settling me with a high blood pressure confliction. As when today my eldest daughter (5, left in the picture) decided she was made to be a hair dresser and cut her little sisters (3, right in the picture) hair. Poor Lucy, she never had any hair to spare in the first place and was so proud a few weeks ago with her first tiny thin little pigtail, which was so frail that it never really lasted long anyway!
Or when today the youngest thought it was a great game to empty a full box of pins into my (!) bed. (She is not daft, of course she doesn not empty them in her own bed.)
And I really thought it was the end of days, when I realized that my five-year old twins can now reach up into the sweety shelf if they stand on a stool. Our supply of chocölates, cookies and all other sweets have dwindled into dangerous all-time low levels. These are sometimes my only way of keeping them in line. I was so happy when they started to understand the if-then-system of cause and symptom. Like: "If you tidy your room, I'll give you a lollipop." or "If you keep arguing with each other, I'll withhold your daily portion of sweet things from you." No more, from now on it is survival of the fittest in our household.

Curiosity killed the cat

It was Eve who was tempted with the apple. Are all women curious? I myself definitely am. I have to try out every new yoghurt flavour that appears in the supermarkets. So maybe it is not that surprising that I just had to find out about yaoi and shounen ai mangas myself.
For all the people out there who don't know yet: I have said it before, there are all kinds of mangas out there. But surprisingly popular are mangas about male gay couples. Shonen Ai literally means boys love and that's exactly what the mangas are about. Usually a young teen couple discovering their first gay love. Yaoi are a bit more mature in their themes and in their target group and may also have some explicit content. The most curious thing about Shonen Ai and Yaoi are that they are primarily made by women for women. Yes, you have not misread this. It's a woman mangaka making up a story about two boys or men falling in love and it's a wide female audience these stories are meant for. I could not quite see the fascination, but as I said before, I am of a curious nature and I also don't like to condemn something without knowing more about it, so I went and tried it out. And I could not have been more surprised as I was when I realized that I found it appealing.

I can't help asking myself why that is so. I like love stories. So there is already one point. Because in the end, shonen ai and yaoi are still mostly about love. Then of course it should be mentioned that where in a conventional love story you have the girl and one (or possibly more) very good looking, or sweet, or cool or for-whatever-else-reason appealing hero. Well, do the maths - in the shounen ai and yaoi stories the number of yummy hunks is easily doubled. Also the story lines provide new ankles for every one who is fed up with the always same old warmed up dish: there is the fear to become gay, the embarrassment and problems of "coming out" and the scourn of society to just name a few. I found the art so far generally also better in average - or rather, I have not seen any shounen ai or yaoi mangas that had their popularity obviously based only on story lines and characters - so far the art has always been at least up to par. And to come to the point of sexual content, as with all mangas it really all depends on the mangaka and the story - even if it is yaoi it may be so mild that there is practically nothing, on the other side the next yaoi may ruin your appetite. I also sometimes really helps that there isn't a female heroine here - because let's be honest, there aren't many female manga characters that really do it for me. Most of them are weak, doormattish, boring and sickeningly good - there are few exceptions to that rule (like in Kimi wa petto - see my blog mistress and pet from last month). So overall having no female lead character really isn't a big loss.
I would not go so far as to say that shounen ai and yaoi mangas are my new obsession or that I would even generally love them, but they have proved an enjoyable side dish to my normal manga menu and I'll definitely keep trying out some more.