Inkblots

I just finished watching Ouran High Host club (in youtube, since it's still unlicensed).

The shoujo comedy was a good choice to waste time with. It was hilarous becuase the cast of characters blend so well together (and for girls like my sister who believes there's shounen ai in everything we watch, satiates her).

One good thing about Ouran is that it could blend the saddest part of human emotions and then make a complete turn around and make you feel light and happy in spite of all the problems. Becuase in the club, everyone is broken in some way, and BECAUSE they are tragically flawed, they are endearing.

Haruhi as a central character has a good personality. A bit oblivious to suggestive comments, but is genrally loved by the club (even if she is dirt poor). Tamaki, the president, might come off too strong... either with the paranoia, the Haruhi love, the hiding in the corner, or my personal favorite in the anime, "Kyouya! Mon Ami! Kyouya! Mon Ami!" (and hopefully you can believe he's half-French while listening to him speak supposedly foreign Japanese -- my sister says that the seiyuu's Japanese while subbing Tamaki does sound a bit weird) but he's the ... figure that holds everyone together (unwittingly or not). Kyouya as the shadow king is also extremely well played. Kauru and Hikaru as being evil/misunderstood is another central plot point in the anime (which any way I look at it turns into a lose-lose situation if they ever grow up)

Unexpectedly, the fight scenes in the anime was well drawn/animated. (I mean it's shoujo, you don't really expect shoujo to have good fight scenes look at Fushigi Yuugi or... ahh.. Shounen ai Kyou Kara Maou). It's not within the standards of Full Metal Alchemist, but it's passable. The movement is fluid, and since you're not watching this for the action scenes anyway, pretty good.

There's not much difference between the manga and the anime (of course the manga is still running in Japan, so the ending in the anime is totally off kilter). Except that the twins are played out to be more humane/less evil in the anime. (You have got to gape at the amazing seiyuu who dubbed the twins. You have to hear them together to understand). And the manga has more funny moments.

The sad thing about the anime, was that they weren't able to add Mori's brother (unlike in the manga) and the Zuka club episodes were dragging (especially with all of the shoujo-ai undertones). Another thing that I would have liked to see in the Anime but didn't reach it, was the school festival. The anime also didn't play up on both Kyouya and Tamaki's background. In the anime, Kyouya's family was more sinister than in the manga.

On a final note, other than it being a fun read/watch witha good deal of heart wrenching moments, I could waste my day looking at all the references to other anime/cultures. Kyouy's laptop is a parody of the Mac powerbook wehre instead of an apple in the cover, a pineapple appears and Renge mentions Edward Elric of Full Metal Alchemist several times. OH and it's also fun trying to distinguish who Kaoru and Hikaru is once you get the hang of it (their voices and attitudes) without looking at the telling hair parting.

Ouran High
Manga Licenced by Viz
Anime Fansubbed by Lunar

I was hoping this would be a post about rend... but it so happens that med school/manga reading/books have been getting in the way of editing rend against "common errors of the english language". *sigh* (I'm still in the middle of the letter H, and well it's taking longer than i anticipated)

However, for those of you who haven't read Ranma the Manga yet, SHADE the original propagator of "The Ranma 1/2 Project" which to the newer generation would be better known as Ranma scanlations, has finally decided that since Ranma is a relatively old series, new blood must be exposed to it and uploaded the manga on his website. The Ranma 1/2 Project

A word of warning, the site domain is ranma hentai becuase it houses Ranma ecchi doujinshi and a lemon fanfiction archive. But that link leads you directly to Rumiko Takahashi's work.

It's time to get to know Ryu Kumon and the rest of the strictly manga only characters. :p