Top Anime Moments We Can Relate To Part 2 – Our Second Choice~

Greetings, this is Chungky, and welcome to part 2 of our Top 3 Anime Moments – presenting our second  choices. Our first foray was unexpected entitled “Nah’ mean Nah’ mean” by arawr if y’all haven’t noticed. Check that out, it had our 3rd choices in it.

Please find my 2nd choice below:

Tonari no Kaibutsukun – Episode 2 | When Shizuku questions Asako’s life on the internet.

Okay, this is a bit of a personal kind of a relation but I think many people have kind-of experienced this sometime in their lives, especially when we’re all caught up with the internet. Of all the characters in Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun, I associate myself with Natsume Asako the most, mainly because of the fact that she loves her internet life just as much as I love mine. It’s really like those times where I’m like, really, really enjoying myself online and like, someone just doesn’t get it.

‘Nah mean? ‘Nah mean??

Ever felt like there was a certain moment in some anime/manga that you could completely relate to?

There’s a lot in the anime/manga universe that seems completely out of this world – naturally, a part of its appeal. It delivers something separate from reality, bringing you away from your own life for a moment. It is in these moments where we are soaking up all these fictional moments when suddenly

SNAP!

It doesn’t seem so fictional anymore. Maybe it was a character, a scene or even just a line that made you shoot out from your seat and go “I KNOW THAT FEEL BRO!!” There are instances in anime/manga where the audience have felt that they could relate to the fictional characters or scenarios that no longer seem as fictional as before (btw I completely understand what it feels like to be randomly swept to another galaxy with me giant mecha).

Both chungky and I have experienced this – and we’ve decided to share our Top 3 Anime Moments We Can Relate To! =D

So as the one who instigated this post, I’ll go first!

“As my love first came to realization, Word had already spread.”

It’s kind of amazing how you look at something differently after watching it the second time. I spent yesterday and a bit of today re-watching the first season of Chihayafuru (and unbeknownst to me so was chungky). For those of you who don’t know it, Chihayafuru is a manga/anime about a bunch of high-school kids playing karuta. Karuta’s basically a game based around the hyakunin isshu, a collection of 100 poems by 100 poets.

Chihayafuru really changed for me when I re-watched it; most probably because my understanding of karuta was a lot better, but now that I knew some things were going to happen, I could pay attention to others instead. For example, there are times in the story where they use the poetry from the hyakunin isshu to illustrate the relationships between the characters; before I thought they were just pretty words that relate really well to the situation. But my second experience with Chihayafuru found the description to be so beautiful, I’ve quoted some of them in this post!

Let’s start!

I read the Chihayafuru manga before the anime came out, and I’ve been captured by it from the very beginning. Maybe it’s my own bias for stories that use the ‘childhood friends’ card; I always feel that the relationship between children are a lot more direct, honest and simple (e.g. not manipulated by hormones yet). So anyway, the three main characters are 1, the heroine (Chihaya), 2, the transfer student who introduces her to karuta (Arata) and 3, the bully/friend (Taichi). I’ll be going off on my own rant about it from here on, so spoilers will follow. But if you’re like chungky who went all “Well, don’t mean to spoil it for you, but looks like the bully’s gonna get her,” when I’d only explained what characters were in the story and nothing about storyline, then we all never had to worry about what ultimately would or would not happen.

BUT THAT’S THE THING!!

Mushroom Manga Talk (?) – Changing the Past in Orange

Orange (Takano Ichigo) /オレンジ (高野苺)

Manga-ka: Takano Ichigo

Genre: Drama, Mystery, Shoujo, Romance, School Life, Slice-of-Life, Supernatural, Tragedy

In the Spring she was 16, Takamiya Naho receives a strange, but detailed letter from herself, ten years in the future. At first she thinks the letter is a prank, but then the things written in the letter actually happen, including the new transfer student that sits next to her in class, Naruse Kakeru. In the letter, her 27-year-old self tells her 16-year-old self that her biggest regret is that Kakeru is no longer with them in the future, and asks her to watch him closely.

———————–

So I don’t usually read – much less write – posts around the shoujo/drama genre, but there was just something about Takano Ichigo’s Orange that compelled me to get typing. The story revolves around a high school girl called Naho, who somehow receives a letter from herself 10 years into the future. The letter basically tells her to re-do the things that her 10-years-later self (let’s call her Naho2) regrets even to her present day, from the little things such as not stepping up as a batter in a class softball tournament, to not being able to save somebody very, very precious to her.

Gosh I feel old but it’s about half a year since I’ve turned 21, and chungky’s also just turned 21 so Happy Birthday dude. Anyway, around the time I turned 21 I started doing everything I always wanted to do, but had been afraid of failing, or having people laugh at me since 1991. There’s always this nagging at the back of my head saying “Well you could’ve done it 10 years ago; you just chickened out,”. I should have been more persistent, I should have been braver, I should have said this, I should have done that. Should, should, should.

But I didn’t.

This Genius’s Manga To Highlight: Doujin Work

 Hello Manga Weekend readers–my name is Justin. I happen to be a writer/co-founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses, and I’m thankful that Chungky has allowed me to write about a manga series that I’m guessing 90% of the manga world does not know about–mainly because I would have never discovered it had I not wasted my time last year at AnimeNext’s Manga Library. Back then I was looking to consume all sorts of manga that had interesting title names (or find works of anime series–like Record of Lodoss War)–naturally, Doujin Work happened to be on the list. Doujin of course is widely known in Japan, and while there are a number of underground series that are tame, most Doujinshi mostly involve a guy “getting” the girl–or an alien “getting” a girl. Yeah, you should be getting the picture about Doujin now! So of course, I decided I would read it.

Weekend’s Ani-Manga Mail – Help Justin discover new anime/manga!

Wey-hey! And here, Weekend’s Ani-Manga Mail takes off with our first participant, Justin from Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. Here are a few words from Justin:

My name is Justin, and I’m one of the writers at Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. I happen to live where the lights are brightest (allegedly), and where the 27-time World Series Champion Yankees play. Yes, that’s NY. I’m usually very quiet. I do like to laugh a lot.

—

Justin is looking for an anime/manga that either has a good story and/or something ridiculously hilarious. He would like the anime/manga to be very satisfying; whereby a story is built, ‘left with intentional plot holes, but either answered said plot holes or left them unanswered in a way where fans can debate for years in a positive manner.’

Introducing Weekend’s Ani-Manga Mail~

Following the Manga Weekend poll(which for some reason hasn’t closed automatically and I’m too lazy to close it), the clear percentage of you guys out there want ani-manga recommendations! Okay, the poll only said manga recs but anyway. So here I am, hoping to introduce a new line up of posts to serve that demand. What is Weekend’s Ani-Manga Mail? Well, sometimes our recommendation posts of manga and anime are not up your street, which is why we introduce Ani-Manga Mail! It’s where you (yes, you), want some manga or anime recommendations/advice; and we and hopefully some readers, try to help you find something to occupy these various gaps in your life. I’m hoping to make this a weekly feature or monthly feature, depending on the feedback we get. I’m not sure if Manga Weekend is up to this level yet but reader participation will be a key factor in making these posts a success so if you’re a visitor of Manga Weekend, I hope you can join in our little discussions once we have our first participant. 

JManga, scanlations & the Laissez-faire attitude

This post is EXTREMELY late!!! It’d probably be a good idea if you just read it as if JManga was just launched…

A couple of months ago, I was prepping up a post about my 2 cents about the scanlaton community and the coalition. I eventually abandoned the post because of my severe case of laziness, lack of inspiration, as well as no courage. In hopes to revive the declining sales of manga, JManga was recently launched and my interest in the subject has been renewed. Now my information on JManga is outdated since I only caught up with what was going when it was first launched. Even so, I don’t have a 1st hand observation since I’m based in the U to the K. So if anything I say is totally old and irrelevant, I’d be happy if someone corrected me.

What is JManga? To put it vaguely and simply, a legal manga aggregation site. I won’t go on about what it is since many other sites have done so and even better than I, but I do strongly recommend reading About.com’s posts on JManga which you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here. A good chunk of my thoughts about JManga I have shared on on Organisation ASG’s post on JManga which you can read here. I recommend this post as well, it has many various initial perspectives on JManga.

4-koma for Beginners? Sonna Mirai wa Uso De Aru & Wa!

As I reflect back upon this year’s spring anime, I think about the bottom 2 anime on my list – Sofutenni and A Channel. The former, I just found impossible to find interesting; and the latter I just loathed with every fibre of my being. Anyway, both have the similar trait of having 4 girls as their characters and being adapted from a 4-koma – I’ll be focusing on the 4-koma aspect here.

I’m not discriminating against 4-koma adaptations- there are some that are among my favourite (K-On! And Working!!) but I never really got down to reading the manga itself. Honestly speaking, it has quite a lot to do with the 4-koma style – the plain, 4 panel boxes and the very ordinary pacing that comes along with it. This is made especially more since I’m used to the flashy slashy jumpy panels with my shounen manga. Stories that I would usually like a lot end up being liked only a little, which I find is such a huge shame.

So I tried something kinda of 4-koma ish, but not exactly a 4-koma. I started with Sonna Mirai wa Uso De Aru, also known as That Future is a Lie.

Sonna Mirai wa Uso De Aru (そんな未来はウソである) / That Future is a Lie 

Manga-ka: Sakuraba Koharu

Genre: School life, Shounen, Supernatural

A girl who can see the future. Another girl who knows if what you’re telling is true or not.

Kuroshitsuji – Elizabeth (Chp 57 Spoilers)

I don’t know what the Kuroshitsuji fandom thinks of Elizabeth – honestly it’s partly because I’m a little afraid to look into that world, where I know there’s a spamming of Ciel x Sebastian fans. Not that I have anything against them, but yaoi/shounen-ai in manga that isn’t yaoi/shounen-ai just feels kinda. Weird.

Anyway. Elizabeth. Ciel’s betrothed, little hyperactive blonde girl whose character type would usually grate on my nerves. But for some odd reason, I never minded her presence. I liked her as much as I like most of the characters in the manga, but with chapter 57 that neutral sort of like might have just actually turned into a like sort of like.

Pretty dresses, permed blonde hair, and an obsession for cute stuff – that pretty much sums up Elizabeth (or Lizzy, I suppose, as she insists on being called). Her thinking is pretty shallow, and the world seems to be divided into cute or not cute. She does everything to try and appeal to Ciel, and I suppose I really start to see it with this chapter.

SPOILERS START HERE, so if you don’t want to continue….