mDuo13

After about 95 hours of gameplay, my party finally beat the last boss of Tales of Vesperia. Overall, it was a really satisfying game with great characters and lots of good party interactions. I wanted to play as most of the party members, but each character is individualized enough that in order to get good enough with any one, you can't really spend time learning the others, especially later on when each character has a variety of different tricks and commands thanks to the huge array of skills available. Perhaps later on I'll replay the game on the PS3 with different friends, and get to try out something new... or perhaps I'll get to play Estelle again. She's good enough that I don't mind either way. I'm looking forward to hearing her voiced in Japanese and seeing the new story points of the PS3 version. But for now, in celebration of finishing the game, I made a new CG of her even though I've been absurdly busy lately.

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In the past couple days, I've finished several things that have been plaguing me for weeks: a story for my creative writing class (to be posted after the class critiques it and I do the quickest edits), an essay for my English seminar, and Simoun. The latter was unfortunately not as good as I had hoped. As I previously mentioned, it is blessed with a great OP and a solid ED, but everything else about the show is rather mediocre. I managed to finish it, in part for completion's sake, though the show wasn't without redeeming moments occasionally, after pulling an all-nighter during which I wrote a combined total of about 14 pages essay and story (bringing the two to totals of 5 and 17, respectively). And so, with that and pretty much everything of the past season out of the way, it's out with the old and in with the new.

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So here I am watching my friend's elemental shaman throw enemy priests off cliffs to thematically appropriate music after finishing a spectacularly placid episode of Akikan... yeah, it's been a slow day. That's okay, though. After my pleasantly uneventful spring break, I had a friend over to visit, so this past week has been a storm of three-Xbox, six-player Left 4 Dead ("Left 6 Dead"?) and other largely multiplayer pursuits... so it's nice to have some time to catch up on anime and a quieter form of leisure.

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In the course of the last three days, I've watched all of Maria-sama ga Miteru - Two original series (13 episodes each at 24 minutes), the OVA (5 episodes of 50 minutes) and all 11 episodes of season 4 that have aired thus far (24 minutes each). That's a lot of anime. And it's been a very enjoyable series for me, for several reasons. But as always when I finish with something as engrossing as this most recent marathon, the recoil when I finish is harsh. After such a break from thinking about ordinary matters, I end up reexamining everything with new perspective, often harshly. This time, the hard question I find myself asking is whether I'm actually making progress.

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Lately I've been watching a fair amount of anime - the list of things I'm keeping up with this season is long - but the one that's wowing me most at the moment is Kemono no Souja Erin, a 50-episode children's fantasy epic that nobody else seems to be watching. It provides something refreshingly different than the current lot of copycat fanservice anime. And even though it's (apparently) aimed at children, it is actually one of the more intelligent shows currently airing.

Take the most recent episode, for example. Even disregarding the unusually good music, the episode introduces us to several potentially recurring characters as well as the concept of the seizan; the one even undergoes a slight change of heart through his encounter with Erin; it brings our first visit to a larger, bustling town; it hints that a grand plot has actually been developing for some time now with the comments about a man who suggested stealing Touda eggs; it introduces a mysterious antagonist; it provides Erin with what will probably be her signature harp, and this is all on top of an episode plot where Erin stands up for a boy because she recognizes her own situation when he is separated from his mother for breaking the law; all this on the excuse of John needing to go into town. And on top of all that, we get a parallel subplot of a lost kitten told without interference by any of the main characters.

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So the time of Spring Break is finally (or already?) upon me. I ended up making no plans except to stay here and have some quiet time to myself, uninterrupted. I have not yet explained this to my parents (who may not realize my spring break is already underway). I hesitate to tell them, because I have a feeling I know how the conversation would go.

"So honey, what are you doing for spring break? Got an exciting trip planned?"

"Nothing, mom. I'm going to sit in my room and watch anime or something."

"But you do that normally. Spring break is a time to go out and do something fun and unusual!"

"I do that normally because that's what I like to do! And anyway, I might not see another person for several days in a row. Now that's something I don't normally get the chance to do!"

"It sounds so lonely. You should have come up here to visit us. I'm sure your cat would like to see you."

"nyoro~n"

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