A Story
I am easily moved to tears. When I watch a documentary or video drama or animation, I am moved immediately. I cannot help thinking that if I was he or she and if I had that accident. I think that I am very weak, human beings are very weak, and then I must cherish my family, friends and people around me.
When I was a high school student, I read an English story that was part of the “center examination,” ie the nationally administered university entrance exam. It was a story about a grandmother’s quilt. Have you ever read this story? Maybe you have.
The story is easy to summarize. A family went bankrupt and they lost their house, a lot of furniture… And at an auction the daughter tries to buy back the grandmother’s quilt that has a lot of memories.
I can’t write more. Please read this story! When I read this story in class, my eyes were watery :-)
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Interesting book
The day before yesterday I read a book, Hakase no aisita su-siki (loved formula by Doctor) by Ogawa Yoko. As soon as starting to read it, I was deeply absorbed; it is a funny and impressive story. The Doctor has a special memory trouble. He can’t keep anything in his memory . He can remember things for only 80 minutes. However, he has always loved mathematics. He is a Doctor of math before he gets into trouble. He is absolutely fascinated with math, which is his only friend in his mind.
One day a woman, a housekeeper, comes to his house. When she meets him, he says evey day, “Nice to meet you! Who are you?” Because he forgot her. At first is embarrassed, plus she is poor at math. But his number stories are easy to understand and mysterious. She loves them. He always talks about numbers during dinner. Except for eating, he lives only in his world where he thinks about math problems.
The housekeeper has one child. When she works in his house, her kid has to be by himself. The Doctor knows that and allows her to come with her kid. Next day the boy comes and the Doctor is happy because he likes children. He nicknames him Root and teaches him math. When Root can figure out the homework, he praises him a lot. He admires Root. His mother likes to see this scene. Although he forgets them every day, they become friends. Root and his mother love the Doctor deeply.
I think the Doctor is a very wonderful and cute man. He is in a hard situation but he does his best every time. His love is very deep. Root and his mother found it, so they like him. The Doctor taught me that it is not important to remember the past, the most imprtant thing is today. I was impressed by him.
This story has been turned into a movie—I want to see it.
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Have you ever read Harry Potter? Maybe you have because the series is really famous all over the world.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling, the sixth book in the bestselling series, was released on July 16, 2005, in the United States, Britain, Canada , Australia and Japan so on. But regrettably, if we want to read the Japanese version of this novel, we must wait until May 17, 2006. It’s too long for me, for everyone who lives in Japan and likes Harry Potter.
Do do you think I could wait so long? No, no and no. I couldn’t wait. So I started reading this book last summer and finally managed to finish reading just two days ago. Of course, it was really difficult for me to read a foreign book like this perfectly, even though it is aimed at children aged ten to twelve. I managed to understand most of it, though. How come? It was because I had some straight tips from a book by Christopher Belton which helps Japanese readers understand Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince .
Overall, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is really fun! It may be the best book I’ve ever read; it certainly has all the excitement and wonder of Rowling’s bestselling previous Harry Potter novels. If you want to read this excellent book as soon as possible, I recommend that you try to read it now rather than wait until May 17. I’m sure this book is worth reading.
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Anime/Manga
Both anime and manga are names used to talk about Japanese cartoons. What is the difference?
Anime comes from “animation” in English, which the Japanese read “animeeshon”, and which in turn has become “anime”. It is used for animated versions only. What kind of animated versions? Of manga. Manga is the word used for Japanese comics. In general, anime is the animated version of manga. However, this is not a hard and fast rule; anime can exist without manga and vice versa.
Megaman NT Warrior
Manga differs from traditional comics because the characters aren’t necessarily super-heroes and the stories seem to be more complex than comics. There is also the way the eyes are drawn: manga characters have large eyes. I am sure there are two reasons for this. The first must be because the Japanese have slanted eyes, so they may be showing what they would like to look like instead. The second is that large eyes are much more expressive.
There are various types of manga. The best-known are shoujo, shonen, hentai and gekiga. Shoujo means “young girl” in Japanese and shoujo manga are mostly love stories. Shonen means “young man” and these manga are mostly about fights. Hentai is a pornographic manga (no comment), and gekiga have adult content (not necessarily pornographic) and you won’t find the traditional enormous eyes in this last type. Well, again, even if shonen is more attractive to boys, girls also enjoy shonen and vice versa. Nothing here is absolute…
A good example of an anime movie is Howl’s Moving Castle. Like many of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies (see my post about this movie), this one is very different in tone from Western cartoons like Disney’s, for instance. Disney is predictable in our culture. We know the good guys will be happy ever after, and the bad guys will die. In Howl’s Moving Castle, however, the good guys sometimes take the bad guys with them, or the bad guys help the good ones. Maybe this is to show that everyone has qualities and defects. For me this depiction of reality is very significant. However, the world created by Miyazaki is also mystical since you never know exactly what it is. There isn’t anyone saying “Long ago, in Blablaland…”. You discover it all by yourself, and interpret it freely (or almost freely).
When you start liking anime and manga, and I speak for myself here (and also for someone who voiced a similar opinion in the newspaper last year, I think), you go from very popular to unknown (or almost unknown) titles. I started watching Pokemon, then I was attracted by other ones like Card Captor Sakura, Corrector Yui, animes whose readers are mostly children…
Then, the process sped up. I looked for more unknown titles, the kind that were not on television. I bought Love Hina (Ken Akamatsu), and all the popular anime were left behind. Love Hina is the story of a guy who wants to go to university. He leaves his home to live with his grandma, but the grandma’s house has become a girl’s dormitory. He’s very unhappy because he’s always being slapped by the girls when he enters the bathroom while they are having a shower… See? It is more like a romantic comedy.
Youji and Natsuo from Loveless
I have gone through Chobits by Clamp (a story that features human-looking robots and centers on the question “can robots feel anything?”), Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada, (Knights of the Zodiac – check my article on Seiya), Cowboy Bebop by Yutaka Nanten (a kind of futuristic manga, with human beings living in the whole galaxy, and with “cowboys”, who are people that catch criminals for a living, but are not police), X by Clamp again (Clamp is a very well-known studio), it talks about the end of the world, Fushigi Yugi by Yuu Watase, Onegai Teacher by Shizuru Hayashiya and Please!. Now I’m buying Megaman NT Warrior by Ryo Tamisaki (popular and funny), Tokyo Babylon by CLAMP, Angel Sanctuary by Kaori Yuki, Saint Seiya Episode G by Masami Kurumada and Megumu Okada, Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya and others I have forgotten…
I also have Gravitation by Maki Murakami, and I’m presently reading Loveless by Yun Kouga (by the way, my sister got me the first Loveless volume in Japanese for Christmas, I’m so happy since I can read and I could understand some things!).
Some links: Clamp, Yun Kouga, Fate, Cowboy Bebop, Anipike, Jetix in Brazil.
What are your favourites and why?
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