That way I can add getting punted off a bridge by Jack Black to my list of occupational hazards, which is actually ridiculously short compared to when I worked in the Deli.

Not many people seem to actually like this series.  They cite the “poor animation quality” that the show has, which is like saying a forest sucks because it’s not completely composed of quality hardwood trees. Much of the seemingly poor quality comes from the manga artist’s way of drawing super deformed characters.  Instead of becoming little fat midgets, they just become very simplified, especialy the hands which tend to look like mittens.  It works.  It takes some adjustment if you aren’t used to it, but it works.  I enjoy it more than the cheesy over-shadowing technique which a lot of anime these days seem to cling to.

The series itself  is a  gag-style comedy involving Japanese high school delinquents, which is one of my favorite genres to be quite honest.  I’m not sure why that is.  It involves a supernatural theme to it, which lead to the inclusion of a gender bender.  I don’t like gender benders, usually, but that’s only because it’s generally used as a completely cliché gimmick.  This one isn’t really gimmicky.  It’s the basis of the main character’s drive and also opens up a theme of the expected differences between genders.

The main characters are great. They’re a little weird, but very likable. I have this weird sort of attachment to each one of them that almost makes me feel I’m seeing some very dear old friends, each time I watch the show. I’ve watched the fifty episode series about twice, some episodes even more.

After watching the entire series, I decided to check to see if any of the manga was translated. I knew that there was a manga because the art, characters, and story type were extremely reminiscent of a manga that one of my friends had pointed out to me the previous year. I found to my absolute glee that it was not only translated, but licensed. It was put out by VIZ, and all twenty volumes were out already. I was ecstatic.

Then I checked the VIZ website to read a preview of their translation. I noticed that the main character’s nickname was changed to a more English sounding name. That worried me. It worried me because VIZ also published Detective Conan and changed the names of most of the main characters to English ones (“WHY DID YOU SAY YOUR NAME WAS CONAN?! YOU’RE NOT SOME FOREIGNER, JIMMY!”). I was worried that they would change other names, although I couldn’t see any other changes in the preview given. I was having doubts about ordering it then, although I really couldn’t afford to anyway at that point.

Later, I found the series while going through the RightStuf catalog to fill out an order. I noticed that they didn’t have the complete series. The first that they had was volume four and several of the later volumes appeared to be missing as well. I looked up the series on VIZ again and found that the series had been discontinued even before I had checked it the previous time. I felt I had missed a chance on a very good thing.

Fast forward a couple months. I hadn’t watched the series for a while, but I still occasionally thought about it. Actually, I thought about it excessively at times. Then I’d go without thinking about it for a week or so.

Last Saturday was a day I was thinking about it a lot. I worked in the bakery from three in the morning until around noon. If I was carrying a loaded tray and had to kick the swinging doors open, I kicked them like one of the characters. If I had to get through a tight space or let someone pass by me, I squeezed through like another character. If I had to bag buns, I amused myself through through pointless introspection, like yet another character. If I noticed something that I should fix but really didn’t want to because it was tedious but I knew I’d feel guilty if I left it undone, I fixed like I always do, but it reminded me of yet another character’s similar trait.

After I got off, I took a shopping trip with my mother to Madison. We, of course, stopped at the Frugal Muse which is the best used bookshop in the entire world, as far as I’m concerned. As I tend to do, I made a beeline to the manga section and found four books that validated the entire trip. They were only three dollars a piece but they were worth more than the entire mass of swag that I purchased on the rest of the trip. I’m not totally sure how much I spent, but it was over a hundred.

Now, when ever I look at a my manga bookcase, I get the warm fuzzies by just glancing at the top shelves.

The translation wasn’t bad at all. Megu being changed to Meg was the only name change I could spot, besides certain characters being referred to by their first names as opposed to their last names more often than I remembered in the anime. The greatest benefit is seeing my favorite characters whenever I want to. I can just pick up a book and see Genzo acting like a totally lovable moron, Yasuda smiling with his trademark perverted grin, and Fujiki over thinking things and taking solace in the fact that he is totally average.

I’m going to be on the look out for the rest of the volumes. It’ll be at my own pace, though. Buying the entire series outright detracts from the excitement of finding them in unexpected places.

It’s pretty annoying because I normally associate the tune with chick flicks and boring documentaries.  Thankfully, it only pops into my head when nothing else is in there and can easily bbe erradicated by humming Smiling Face by James Taylor; I, Don Quixote from The Man of la Mancha; or Lover’s Concerto, specifically the version performed by The Toys.

Kinda?

Right hand – Plain Vanilla, basically.

Left Hand – Like the right… only crappier!  I was kind of afraid to drag my hand through the ink, though.

Mouth – I like font that my mouth draws.  It’s all like rounded but angular.  But the drawing just kind of sucks.

Right Foot – In which the ear beomes a nose and people resemble evil sheep-elves.

My mouth tastes funny now.  I did the mouth picture directly after the foot picture.  Maybe I should have washed the pen off first.

I think I did even it properly!  It tasted pretty decent too, though next time I’d cut the beef up a little more and back off on the cayanne and black peppercorn.  I thought I wanted it spicy, but I ended up eating more bread and milk than actual curry.  Maybe I’ll actually put the apple in next time as well.

If you notice, I served this in the popular half-over the rice fashion, apparently to make myself feel like a weeaboo.  The fact that the food tastefully matches the the design on plate is completely unintentional.  I’ve had those dishes for a couple years, I swear.

Anyway, this took about two or so hours to cook from scratch, and it didn’t help that I started at 7:59 PM on a really freaking hot day.  Oh gawd, I’m sweating all over.  Urgh.

Oh!  I got the recipe from this site, which I would highly recommend.  The guy who writes it is seriously awesome.

I can’t belive it’s taken me this long to read the entire series.  I loved it ever since I read the first chapter, which was a loooong time ago.  I finally finished it tonight.  I’m currently considering it equal in awesomeness to Penguin Brothers.  I wonder if that’s okay.

It was my kind of story, though.  Strong heroine, awesome characters, complex developing relationships.  It was also a romantic comedy that was light on the romance, very heavy on the comedy.  I prefer it that way.  Overly romantic stories make me gag.

As usual with my projects, she turned out darned huge.  Not finished yet, of course, I need more yarn for her hair and some embrodiery floss for her eyes.  Then I need to make her some clothes.  Then she’ll be good, I think.  I’m thinking that I shouldn’t listen to any Jonathan Coulton songs tonight.

Here’s the pattern I used for her.

The virtue of this design is that if you make the neck a little bigger and make it out of metallic fabric, it’ll look like a Starman.  Then you can make 254 more of them and beat them all up and probably get a Sword of Kings.  Or you can get lucky like I did and get it from the second one you fight.

Anyway, I’ll work on it more tomorrow after my not-as-early-as-I-thought shift.  Plus, I’ll be probably working on a racy drawing that I won’t have the guts to publish.  Tee hee.

If you think you know who this character is, you are mistaken, unless you’ve read through my sketchbooks, which is unlikely.  It’s not Ki.  It’s Match, who is like Ki except he doesn’t technically exist outside of one character’s mind’s imagination.  Not the character’s imagination, the imagination of character’s mind.  Which totally would make sense at least half-way if I explained it throughly, but I don’t feel like it.  I will say that he’s the only character of mine that I would term as Consistently and Disturbingly Insane.

I also am planning on remaking something I made in Middle School.  It was something I called a body pillow, but was really just an huge mattress stuffed with fiber-fil.  It was my favorite thing to sleep on until my mother decided to burn it because it was impossible to wash.  This time I’m making it more carefully, and will be making a washable cover for it as well.  I have dubbed the project as Body Pillow Futon Mk II.

I’m tempted to get rid of my bed if this works out well.  I think the bed takes up too much space.  I could totally fit a couple of bookshelves on that side of the room if I didn’t have it there.  The Body Pillow Futon Mk II is designed to be rolled or folded up when not in use, so it won’t take up much space at all, despite being larger than my bed is now.

I bought the fabric for the main pillow part today along with some batting.  I got them locally too.  I paid a quite a bit for them, but the fabric extra wide and I recieved a piece of graph paper that was covered in scribbles and had a red glitter heart stuck to it as a gift.  The shop owner’s four year-old daughter insisted it was for me.  Apparently I don’t scare kids anymore.  Go me!

I ended up not making curry. I’ve got to find a decent recipe that I understand first. I want to try making Japanese curry, a little research told me there are different kinds, but I want to find one that isn’t sweet and tells what spices to use instead of a bouillon-type block. I don’t think I could find a decent kind of block in the store, if any at all.

The only types of manga I can’t stand are ones that exist only to be cute, pointless disgusting, or romantic. Also stuff that tries to hammer you over the head with a “deeper meaning” when there is a slow-moving or absence of plot. However, I can totally ignore those points if they include even one character that I really, really like.

A lot of stuff I’ve found recently involves vampires, which seem to be rather popular right now. I’ve yet to find one better than Traveller of the Moon. I don’t care what anyone says, Ida is the best vampire ever. He’s cute and has no idea where babies come from so I think he works perfectly. I really don’t think vampires work as sexy. They only work if they are either cute, scary, or comic relief. I feel the same way about miscellaneous playboy characters.