From cruises and Open-Air Sculpture Museums, to shrines, origami, tea ceremonies, fans, fox charms, and my own kimono!
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
A Week in Japan - Part 1
This is only a handful of the photos I took on my trip. A great tour from Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakone, all the way to Osaka. Not a lot of Tokyo since I was unfortunately ill for half the first day, and my phone ran out of storage space near the end before going to Osaka. Maybe I'll upload more photos from my dad's camera soon :)
Saturday, 21 April 2018
Monday, 9 April 2018
Update
As luck would have it, my internet connection is down a few days before my trip to Japan. I'm now using my local library connection. So in case I don't have a chance to write anything else before Thursday: I will be away for over a week - in a holiday/tour in Japan! Can't wait! I will be back soon, with news and photos and souvenirs! Take care and happy reading, everyone :D
Saturday, 7 April 2018
UPDATE ON CINEMA EXPERIENCE: A girl in front of me at the 'A Wrinkle in Time' screening actually jumped when the Disney logo sequence played at the beginning, as if she either forgot that this is indeed a Disney movie, or she somehow never knew that fact before watching it.
Also PSA: When the film is playing in the theater, please turn off your phone. The light from your phone alone is distracting to the person next to you. You chose to pay to watch the film, so just watch it; plenty of time for texting later. You may not be invested in the film you chose to pay to watch, but that doesn't mean no one else is. You are ruining other cinema goers' enjoyment; their cinema experience. During 'A Wrinkle in Time' I was restraining myself from telling the girl next to me to put away her phone - the light of which could be seen from space - already. It's enough to almost make me stop going to the theater altogether.
Wow it took a lot from me to not swear up a storm in typing all that.
Also PSA: When the film is playing in the theater, please turn off your phone. The light from your phone alone is distracting to the person next to you. You chose to pay to watch the film, so just watch it; plenty of time for texting later. You may not be invested in the film you chose to pay to watch, but that doesn't mean no one else is. You are ruining other cinema goers' enjoyment; their cinema experience. During 'A Wrinkle in Time' I was restraining myself from telling the girl next to me to put away her phone - the light of which could be seen from space - already. It's enough to almost make me stop going to the theater altogether.
Wow it took a lot from me to not swear up a storm in typing all that.
Manga Review - 'Flying Witch, Vol. 1' by Chihiro Ishizuka
'Flying Witch' is 'Kiki's Delivery Service' nearly grown-up. A slice-of-life manga that happens to have a witch in it; that is, a witch-in-training, a teenager named Makoto Kowata, highlighting the ways in which there is a little magic in the everyday things in life. The simple things.
Refreshing. Bedazzling.
There's family bonding, a female black cat familiar who doesn't talk but who Makoto understands, a flying broomstick, farming, a screaming mandrake, school girlfriends, an owl spirit harbinger of spring, daily walks, a ganguro older sister witch, and crows. No concrete plot or structure, just living the episodes of life in each chapter. I like how Makoto being a witch is like an open secret within her distant family and town, and the ways in which different people react to her identity.
There are funny moments as well, such as Makoto commenting on how riding a broom too much hurts her groin - I don't think I've ever seen or read anything before where a witch mentions that side of broom-riding.
'Flying Witch, Vol. 1' - no romance, no boring bishonen cliches, no fanservice. There's none of the things that made me stop reading manga for years. In a couple of days I've read two really good contemporary manga volumes in a row, and they make me proud to be a geeky reader of manga and comics again, especially of those starring female protagonists.
I feel light, like flying a kite, or flying high into the sky on a comfortable broom, if there could be any such magic for that.
I like to encourage and support original art. This is one of them. Recommended.
Final Score: 4/5
Refreshing. Bedazzling.
There's family bonding, a female black cat familiar who doesn't talk but who Makoto understands, a flying broomstick, farming, a screaming mandrake, school girlfriends, an owl spirit harbinger of spring, daily walks, a ganguro older sister witch, and crows. No concrete plot or structure, just living the episodes of life in each chapter. I like how Makoto being a witch is like an open secret within her distant family and town, and the ways in which different people react to her identity.
There are funny moments as well, such as Makoto commenting on how riding a broom too much hurts her groin - I don't think I've ever seen or read anything before where a witch mentions that side of broom-riding.
'Flying Witch, Vol. 1' - no romance, no boring bishonen cliches, no fanservice. There's none of the things that made me stop reading manga for years. In a couple of days I've read two really good contemporary manga volumes in a row, and they make me proud to be a geeky reader of manga and comics again, especially of those starring female protagonists.
I feel light, like flying a kite, or flying high into the sky on a comfortable broom, if there could be any such magic for that.
I like to encourage and support original art. This is one of them. Recommended.
Final Score: 4/5
Manga Review - 'The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún Vol. 1' by Nagabe
Once upon a time...
There was a little girl named Shiva.
Shiva lives in a small house in a land of "Outsiders", with a figure she calls "Teacher". The tall, dark, mysterious yet homely Teacher is an Outsider: said in books and fairy tales to be cursed by a god of dark, in recompense to being banished from the human world by a goddess of light. Outsiders can spread the curse and make more monsters by touch, so Teacher will not ever let tiny Shiva touch him. They share a special bond nonetheless; one that is warm, cosy and comforting without the need for physical contact. Human and inhuman are happy together.
But outside the Outside world - a "light" kingdom inhabited by none-cursed humans, the Insiders - there are people, soldiers, who want to kill any Outside creature they come across; out of fear, and desperation to eradicate the curse, the contamination, the plague. Shiva is a normal child in extraordinary, supernatural circumstances. She loves sugary tea, and knows someone who is "cursed", who looks like a traditional monster, but would never hurt anyone. The two are a harmless family, living in peace.
Beware, light child - in her surroundings and in hearts - who walks the lines between day, night and twilight, you will become a target for those on the Inside who fear what they don't understand.
Who are the twisted ones in this tale?
What a lovely, eerie, spectral, non-traditional fairy tale about getting lost in the dark, dark woods.
'The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún Vol. 1' is a nice blend of light and dark - literally contrasted as two different kingdoms here - of sweet and sinister, with layers, that can be read through like a ghostly tapestry in under half an hour.
What I didn't get from another fantasy manga, 'The Ancient Magus' Bride', I got from 'The Girl from the Other Side'. There's no romance, nor any of that disturbing subtext that's not subtext; the little manga about a little girl living near dark wood with a scary-looking demon man who isn't so scary after all has all the simple beauty of an ethereal pearl.
The adorable little girl, Shiva, shows more assertiveness and survival skills than the female protagonist, Chise, in 'The Ancient Magus' Bride'. She and Teacher have a healthy, almost equal relationship; that of a guardian for an angel and her whims. Teacher cares about his charge, but he keeps secrets from her. Important secrets she will need to know in order to survive in a cruel, scary, scared, divided world. The risk of sacrificing her carefree innocence will be proven essential to take.
Funny how I found the unintentional creepiness in 'The Ancient Magus' Bride' to be far more unsettling than the intentional creepiness in 'The Girl from the Other Side'. The former is the real horror story. Heck, the latter is an all-ages manga! Nothing objectionable in it.
A great reflection on what constitutes light and dark, good and bad, normal and strange. A mirror on the fear of "Outsiders", or to put it another way, the "Other". 'The Girl from the Other Side' is a quiet, enchanting fairy tale for both the kid at heart and the adult in mind, reminding us of both the simple things in life, and of its darkness, which comes in many colours.
Final Score: 4/5
There was a little girl named Shiva.
Shiva lives in a small house in a land of "Outsiders", with a figure she calls "Teacher". The tall, dark, mysterious yet homely Teacher is an Outsider: said in books and fairy tales to be cursed by a god of dark, in recompense to being banished from the human world by a goddess of light. Outsiders can spread the curse and make more monsters by touch, so Teacher will not ever let tiny Shiva touch him. They share a special bond nonetheless; one that is warm, cosy and comforting without the need for physical contact. Human and inhuman are happy together.
But outside the Outside world - a "light" kingdom inhabited by none-cursed humans, the Insiders - there are people, soldiers, who want to kill any Outside creature they come across; out of fear, and desperation to eradicate the curse, the contamination, the plague. Shiva is a normal child in extraordinary, supernatural circumstances. She loves sugary tea, and knows someone who is "cursed", who looks like a traditional monster, but would never hurt anyone. The two are a harmless family, living in peace.
Beware, light child - in her surroundings and in hearts - who walks the lines between day, night and twilight, you will become a target for those on the Inside who fear what they don't understand.
Who are the twisted ones in this tale?
What a lovely, eerie, spectral, non-traditional fairy tale about getting lost in the dark, dark woods.
'The Girl from the Other Side: Siúil, a Rún Vol. 1' is a nice blend of light and dark - literally contrasted as two different kingdoms here - of sweet and sinister, with layers, that can be read through like a ghostly tapestry in under half an hour.
What I didn't get from another fantasy manga, 'The Ancient Magus' Bride', I got from 'The Girl from the Other Side'. There's no romance, nor any of that disturbing subtext that's not subtext; the little manga about a little girl living near dark wood with a scary-looking demon man who isn't so scary after all has all the simple beauty of an ethereal pearl.
The adorable little girl, Shiva, shows more assertiveness and survival skills than the female protagonist, Chise, in 'The Ancient Magus' Bride'. She and Teacher have a healthy, almost equal relationship; that of a guardian for an angel and her whims. Teacher cares about his charge, but he keeps secrets from her. Important secrets she will need to know in order to survive in a cruel, scary, scared, divided world. The risk of sacrificing her carefree innocence will be proven essential to take.
Funny how I found the unintentional creepiness in 'The Ancient Magus' Bride' to be far more unsettling than the intentional creepiness in 'The Girl from the Other Side'. The former is the real horror story. Heck, the latter is an all-ages manga! Nothing objectionable in it.
A great reflection on what constitutes light and dark, good and bad, normal and strange. A mirror on the fear of "Outsiders", or to put it another way, the "Other". 'The Girl from the Other Side' is a quiet, enchanting fairy tale for both the kid at heart and the adult in mind, reminding us of both the simple things in life, and of its darkness, which comes in many colours.
Final Score: 4/5
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