When my husband comes on every other weekend and sees his son, he says "Markie, when are going to get a haircut?" Do you feel with fathers who have unruly marihuana-smoking sons with motorcycles, tattoos, long hair and girlfriends with white shoes? Our situation is a bit different though, cause our son is only 6. My husband suspects that I encourage him to grow his hair long because of my manga obsession (and even my husband knows that many manga boys have long haircuts).
The truth is - I do support my son and his long haircut - because I really like men with long hair. Long hair often gives men a certain something, that makes them double attractive. A wildness, an image of sensuality, of taboo-breaking. Not every male face looks better with long hair, some men are meant for short haircuts. My son looks totally beautiful with his long shaggy, strawberry blond mane (I am just as biased as every mother, I guess). It took him quite some patience to have it grow so long (because he wants to become a rockstar ... or maybe if that doesn't work out he would like to own a pet shop). Surprisingly quite a few of his friends have a bit longer haircuts, too - so he seems to be going with the current fashion trend for 6-year-olds. I wonder how long it will hold and when he will give in to his father's complaints or society's pressure or the next fashion trend.
Life is a stairway. Continuously we reach new steps. That is especially true for children. My twins have just reached a new step in the last two weeks - they both lost their first teeth. They don't look much a like, they don't act much a like, but certain things seem to be the same. They got their first teeth pretty much at the same time and it was for both of them the bottom middle ones first. And now they lost both their first tooth, middle bottom ones again. Sophie was first. First the teeth were slightly wobbly, then it became more wobbly and the same day it was out. Then she lost the second one two days later. And another week later Mark lost his first tooth. As with everything it was more difficult for him, he seemed afraid of what was happening in his mouth.
Of course the tooth fairy came to visit them as well. In Germany the tooth fairy is a newer invention, not a tradition. At least at the time when I lost my first teeth such a thing was not around. The german tooth fairies these days bring small toys to the children. My children have a book of the "Charlie and Lola"-Series by Lauren Child (just btw - I love these stories!) and one of the books ("My wobbly tooth must not ever fall out") covers how Lola gets her first wobbly tooth and what happens then. In that book the tooth fairy brings money. I have decided that it is a scottish fairy visiting my half-scottish children and that she will bring money as well. For the simple reason that Sophie lost her tooth at a time when I could not go out and get her toy in time for the magical fairy-exchange. She put her tooth in a little sachet underneath her pillow and the next morning - poof - there was some money for her. When it was Mark's turn for the first tooth-fairy visit, I thought he could borrow the little sachet from her, but he flatly denied this on grounds that "not much would fit in there". He wanted to use a big plastic bag. I doubt that the tooth fairy would have found the tiny tooth in the giant bag. We agreed that he could use the case of his Nintendo DS. I remember the times when I lost teeth and how my mom was horrified by watching me twist the loose teeth around in my mouth. And I remember that this encouraged me to do it even more. This time I was on the receiving end. I nearly lost the contents of my stomach watching Mark and Sophie's teeth doing the horizontal thing.
Long time no read. While I had no chance to write any blogs, I have continued to watch anime and manga. One anime series that has kept me surprisingly hooked for a long time is "Prince of Tennis". This started when I wanted to try out a few shonen series. I did not seriously expect much, but you never know so I thought instead of carrying a prejudice against them about with me for the rest of my life I should rather just go and read a couple. I bought the first 8 or so volumes of the manga series at ebay and started reading. Nobody was more surprised than myself that I really enjoyed it - my belly hurt so much from laughing. Prince of Tennis is hilarious. Entertaining. Exciting. Inspiring. And simply lots of fun. Later I gave up on the mangas and simply watched the anime instead - and this is a case where I seriously even prefer the anime to the manga. Sports just come across a lot better in motion.
Sports? Well, Prince of Tennis is - don't be shocked - about Tennis. Basically it follows a middle school boy named Echizen Ryouma, who as the promising son of a former pro tennis player more or less grew up playing tennis and does not do much apart from swinging the racket back and forth. He lives with his parents, cousin and cat. And his father registered him at Seigaku Middle school, where he himself was training once. Ryouma becomes the first first-year student of the Seigaku to enter the schools team of regular players. Together as a team they want to win the national championship. The AMV I have selected above for you gives a glimpse of the story and how the anime is made and shows some of my favourite characters
Surprisingly the anime is really mostly about tennis. There is the odd episode in between that covers a bit of personal stuff. Or the odd chibi episode. But mostly it is about two (or in case of doubles four) guys playing tennis. Now, I have taken a class of tennis at university sports about 230 years ago. I wouldn't say that I can play, but I staggered over a court, played balls into the net or the out-area and learned the basic rules. I wasn't good, but it was fun. What is not fun - to me at least - is watching other people play tennis. I fail to see the point of watching tennis matches in TV or elsewhere. The constant plop... plop... sound and the lemming-like turning of heads to the left ... to the right ...to the left is just so ... boring. But not in an anime! Watching Ryouma and friends play tennis was exciting. Would he be able to return the smash? Was the injury too bad to continue playing? Who would win? I was really absolutely into it.
But not only the sportive excitement makes this anime a success. There's also the characters. You get to know Ryouma and his fellow team-mates very well over the time of 178 (!) episodes ( plus some specials). Each player has his own style, his own repertoire of tennis tricks, his own character. There is Ryouma. Shortie, youngest in the team, rookie. He shows no respect towards anyone, unless they earn it the hard way. He seems cold and detached, but isn't. There are his friends and team-mates Momoshiro, Kaidou, Fuji, Tezuka, Inu, Oishi, Kawamura and Kikimaru. And there are also many other teams and their numerous members - friend and foe alike.
I want to introduce you to my favourite Prince of Tennis characters.
Echizen Ryouma - the prince himself. The main hero. He's such a cheeky little punk with no respect but plenty of attitude - you just have to admire him.
Ibu Shinji - Ibu is one of Ryoumas first opponents, there is some rivalry amongst them, but also understanding. What I like about Ibu, apart from the half long black hair is mostly his character. He is an even more reserved character than Ryouma. He's also a muttering guy. Always quietly muttering some things to himself. I just love this kind of weirdness.
Sanada Genichirou - another opponent of Ryouma, but much later and the first guy to seriously crack Ryoumas cool exterior - but not for long. Another cool guy, relatively quiet, but out of self-assurance not lack there-of.
Atobe Keigo - Now HE is anything but reserved. How much so you can deduct from his favourite saying "Beware of my prowess!". Atobe comes from a unbelievably wealthy background, complete with butler bringing him his racket and everything. He's arrogant - unbelievably vain. And very entertaining.
Even my children have started to get into "Prince of Tennis" - totally ignoring the fact that they don't understand Japanese and can't read the english subtitles. My son has become a big admirer of Kikimaru Eiji - to the point of where he wanted to die his hair red and was running around with an elastoplast on his cheek. I believe that is mostly because Kikimaru plays athletic tennis with lots of daring jumps and sommersaults - to be athletic and flexible like this equals true greatness in my sons eyes.
Yaoi? Are you kidding me? This is a boys' tennis club. Plenty of young men getting sweaty together ... of course Yaoi fans have long ago claimed the Prince of Tennis guys for their perverted fantasies. There's lots of stuff out there. Fan stories. Doujinshi mangas and fanart. Just to prove my case:
One of the things that I find the most difficult at blogging is the pictures. I have no problems to find new topics to write about or to get my thoughts into written words, but I often have difficulties finding good pictures or videos to match my texts. And while I am fully a writing person, I think that the picture is what makes the first impression for the blog. So therefore it should be eyecatching and getting people interested - if these requirements are met, the chance to get people to read your blog will rise a lot.
So because I did not have a good base I thought I wanted to do my own pictures. I have a few times here used photographs that I took myself (like the pics of the horses or of my children). But I write a lot about mangas and anime, so of course I wanted good picture material for these themes as well. But mangas are usually black and white and while I think that works fine sometimes, I don't want to use too much black and white graphics. This is why I decided to try myself at colouring. Sounds easy, doesn't it? My children do it all the time, so I should be able to do it. But ... I have almost zero experience with graphic programs. Well, if you don't start, you'll never get the experience. My very first real job of trying to colour in a black and white manga picture was the cut-out that makes my GeishaX avatar picture. It is taken from "akuma de sourou" (I have blogged this manga partially in my blog "Triangles and Tears" in August 2008) and I used Paint Shop Pro to colour in the hair. My second trial at colouring in is the above picture of Goichi from the Manga "Invisible Love" by Honjou Rie (her family name is also written as Honjo or Honjoh). I dipped the eyes in a poisonous green, added a skin tone to all that glorious naked skin, dyed the lips, put a spark of red into the cigarette tip, coloured the cigarette end, gave the shirt a in-the-eye pink colour and added two shades of brown to the hair. The truth is, that I am not really satisfied. Especially once the picture was uploaded ... suddenly it looks nothing like the thing I worked on. The colours blur too much, one of the green eyes is hardly visible because it's covered by hair, the shirt lines don't come out enough through the pink colour. *GRRRR* Still, I guess it was worth doing this. I already thought about what I would change if I had to do it again.
Ryuk, a death god has lived so long and life in the dry world of the death gods has become boring. So he drops a death note in the human world. A death note being a notebook, which looks like a normal notebook, but if you write the name of a person in it and picture their face in your mind, the person will die. This book falls onto the human earth and into the hands of genius best student of the year - Yagami Light, son of a police officer. Light decides to cleanse the world of evil and starts to take out numerous criminals by means of the death note. Soon - and totally in line with Lights plans - the world takes notice and the governments make L, the most famous of all investigators look for "Kira" as the killer is named. L is a genius himself, but will a human who does not know of the existence of death gods and their notebooks ever get to the truth of this case? A battle of minds ensues.
Death Note, a manga and later also an anime series made furore. The story is very excitingly told with numerous twists and turns and unexpected events. The art style is excellent, the characters outstanding. And very importantly: Death Note, both the manga and the anime appeal to a wide audience. Even my husband, a man who belittles my interest has shown an interest in Death Note. For everyone who would like a first small visual impression, I found a short AMV at youtube:
I liked the story very well, even if I did not believe it completely without fail. The middle of both the mangas and the anime has a little sag in the story, where I got a bit impatient and wanted the plot to proceed faster and to "get to the point". Still, it overcame that stage and it did get to the point. It was also made in a very appealing way with good graphics.
My favourite Death Note Characters are:
L. Of course. The reasons are simple: He's a mastermind and very cute. He's outstanding and I like his naked feet and crouched way of sitting. And the look of challenge and fun in his eyes.
Mello. This one is more difficult to explain. He's a bit of a villain after all. I liked him because he seemed rebellious and difficult to handle. And because he had the most outstanding fashion sense in the series ... well, maybe after the death gods. Also in the later part of the series Mello has half of his face covered in burn scars. And he's one of those people who look better with scars than without. They add to his character, before the scars he looked like a sulky teen, with the scars he has finally grown into his own role.
Ryuk - the Death God. He's mischievious, selfish and heartless and doesn't bother to hide it. Ryuk is just fun to watch.
Mikami Teru. I know this one is really difficult to explain. Another villain. But I prefer Mikami to Yagami Light, because even if he deceives himself about the means to achieve a better world he just fell for the whole "Kira = God"-thingy. I admire him for his strict, stoical habits and his discipline. And - let's be honest - I thought he was the best looking man in the series.
Hey, most of my favourite characters are baddies!!! Hmh ... I wonder - does that say something about me?
There were also characters I hated. Most of all Amane Misa. I hated her already in the manga for her stupidity and her dumb-is-cute-attitude and her totally misplaced believe in Light. I hated her even more when I saw the anime because she had a horrible high pitched voice that I could not endure for long without getting headaches.
No matter if it is the manga or the anime, Death Note would suit almost anybody with a mind open enough to try something new.
And just to prove my point - of course there is Death Note Doujinshi yaoi, lots of yaoi fanfiction and fanart out there! Check it out:
Over Christmas and New Year we have been renovating. We have been going through a room swapping stage. The swapping is now concluded, but the renovation still carries on. We live in house. Downstairs we have a kitchen, a small bathroom, living room with dining room (separated only through a halfwall so they appear as almost one unit), a conservatory and one bed room, which before was the twins room. Upstairs we had one bigger bedroom where my husband, Lucy and I were sleeping. Next to that a small room that served as a changing room, where our wardrobe was placed, a bathroom and a study. First my husband and I had to pack all our clothes into suitcases and boxes and our son got the small former changing room as his new pirate cave. Then we had to all 3 of us move out of the upstairs bedroom and that became the new girls' room. Then my husband and I moved into the former twins room. Then we collapsed. And after alltogether almost 6 weeks of renovations in various stages of chaos we even decided to get a new cupboard for the kitchen. Despite sore backs and being sick of the mess, we are still not finished. Ian and I are currently sleeping in a room that still has a cheery animals-at-the-zoo border und a glow-in-the-dark-starry wallpaper. But for now I am weary. Even the upstairs rooms still need little things to do here or there like new curtains, a new lamp etc One of the side effects of all this was that I have been visiting IKEA at a weekly basis. As I did - again - today. If you are feeling sick at the sight of Köttbullar, it's a sure sign, that you have been at IKEA too often. IKEA is a phenomenom. It attracts people of all age groups, all professions and all kind of mental states. Today I was parked next to big van painted in matt black with the skull and crossbones, top-down crosses and Antichrist paroles included. On the back there was a statement, that the van was the means of transport of ... the big city rebels. ... Hmh? Should satanistic rebels be shopping at IKEA? Don't they have an image to keep up? Like making their own furniture out of real bones and steel or sleeping in used coffins? I'm kinda disappointed. Punks, Goths and all other kind of rebels should live in style. Like this:
I remember that my friend used to live in a flat over a goth-punk couple and she was immensely amused by their all-black washing hanging out in the sun to dry, and their very normal and un-gothic, un-punky behaviour including lovers-quarrels about who's turn it was doing the dishes. They even complained occasionally that she should please turn her music down. Seems sometimes what's inside is not what the outside suggests. Satanists buy the striped Ektorp-Couch at IKEA and Goths can be unmasked as wish-we-were-Goths. The real punk was probably my friend, whom people who did not know better thought normal or possibly even boring.
