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stephenringer:

thank you cannibal troll

(Source: stephenringer)

Parker Pens and Moleskine Notebooks

I thought I’d take a moment to mention something a little random. I fell in love with Parker Jotter Ballpoint pens a few years ago because of how smoothly they wrote and how comfortable the skinny and somewhat small pens felt in my hand. I also recently got a Parker Jotter fountain pen and it is as awesome to write with as I expected. I got it from ebay pretty cheap for fountain pens and it seriously writes like a dream. Its very smooth and doesn’t blot much at all like other fountain pens I’ve used. So if you’re looking for a nice pen, ballpoint or fountain, I’d suggest giving a Parker Pen a try.

On a related note, a friend of mine introduced me to Moleskine Notebooks a while back. They are very nice and the pocket notebooks are incredibly convenient. They fit nicely in a pocket or slip into a pouch in a bag/backpack/ect. The hard cover ones have a nice elastic closure and cloth bookmark string in the spine. I usually keep one on me in my back pocket. They are excellent little notebooks for a small journal, or taking notes when the need arises. They also have various types, like non-lined versions better suited for sketches or doodling.

Cool Anime Openings Part 2

So I probably should’ve mentioned this in part one, but there are 10 openings I’m posting. Mostly because it seemed a bit much to put all 10 videos in one post, still kinda over doing it with 5 in a post, but whatevs. Here’s the rest of them, enjoy.  

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Cool Anime Openings Part 1

So I’m feeling kinda lazy, but I wanna still post something, so I decided a fun way to kill two birds with one stone is just toss up a bunch of cool anime openings from various animes. I tried to get a mix of styles, some happy, some darker, some lighter, you’ll see what I mean, or I’ll have failed in which case explaining it makes not difference =P These are in no particular order and not necessarily my favorites, but I do like them all and I like the animes they are in.

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Ginen Shounen

Though its not quite finished, I really can’t praise this manga enough and hope the ending continues the trend. The writing is great and the emotional roller coaster is done brilliantly with some big highs and lows with a nice mix between. There are a few frustrating moments, but it isn’t over-used to make the audience constantly rage like some other manga I’ve read. The main character is normal, a bit slow and very patient. He’s into photography and is incredibly good at it. The only reason I felt it necessary to mention his being slow is that it is really shown when compared to the love interest who is constantly going at top speed to enjoy life to the fullest, while the main character is more content to take a more leisurely route in life. He develops a photography technique that is kinda like seeing the future, he can use it to tell where a bird will fly or how the clouds will change in the sky and take better pictures because of it. However, it gets a bit more involved quickly on and starts giving him hints of his future and that of his childhood friend (the love interest). His competition shows up early and while he doesn’t show up very consistently, when he does he tends to outdo the main character without much effort, which can lead to frustrating times. Still, the main character fights back in his own way and does a few incredibly thoughtful and romantic things throughout the manga.

This is definately one to check out, the writing is impressive, the art is good. Also, its not an incredibly long manga, which can be either a bad or a good thing. Bad because I’m sure I’ll want more when the end comes sometime this month or so, and good because its easy to dive into and finish in a reasonable time. So if you have any interest in romance manga, I would totally suggest checking this one out, it is really incredible.

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Kaichou Wa Maid-sama!

Kaichou Wa Maid-sama! is a nice romance/comedy anime with a lot of cuteness to it. The art is often stylized to full chibi or somewhat chibi proportions, with plenty of other traditional effects to accent emotion and such. The main relationship takes forever, but thats usually to be expected, so there’s a lot of ‘will they or wont they’ going on. Misaki actually reminds me at times of the teacher in Gokusen in how she acts and handles the male students as Student Council President. The story mostly revolves around Misaki working part-time in a maid cafe and keeping it secret from people she knows at school to keep her reputation as Student Council President. She is quite rough and uncompromising to the male students and gets carried away by her guy-hating bias sometimes in her attempts to make Seika a better school and a better place for girls.  Of course some people find out, notably the quiet and much adored by the girls Usui Takumi. At first their relationship consists mostly of Usui teasing Misaki and her tsundere reactions.

This is a nice, light, and enjoyable anime for anyone who likes romance/comedy/school life type stuff, and there are quite a few of those. Still I found it maintains a nice balance of seriousness and comedy throughout, tossed in a few obstacles and interesting events, and rounded it out with a touching end.

Also, though it’s not quite the same there were a few times I was reminded of Gokusen while watching this anime, mostly when Misaki has to go and fix a problem that has occurred and her caring side is shown to the students who normally just see her as a demon who’s always yelling at them. So if you enjoyed the moments where she acted to help fellow students she normally scolds and such, you might wanna check out Gokusen. It’s about a teacher who starts teaching the big bad delinquent class and passionately tries to get them involved and help them with problems that arise.

School Days (Manga)

I already heard a lot about this one so the ending really came as no surprise other than I was expecting more craziness throughout the manga. If you’re not a fan of yanderes (mentally unstable, obsessive, and willing to do anything for their love) you probably won’t like the ending. But on the other hand the rest of the manga was pretty tame and normal romance/school life with a love triangle going on. A few hints are dropped here and there that things might not be as normal as they seem, though.

I enjoyed reading the manga, but it felt too short. Perhaps it was because I was reading a little faster than usual looking for some yandere craziness, but I breezed through the 12 chapters in no time at all. It also seemed to have somewhat poor balance. The majority of the manga felt like a normal love triangle type of story, and the ending kinda comes in as shocking in the last chapter because of it. Perhaps it was done on purpose, but I feel a few more hints and glimpses of the girls’ darker sides would’ve been nice. So people who want a normal romance manga will likely be put off by the ending, and people looking for a dark yandere manga will be disappointed up until the end. But still, if you wanna see how a yandere love triangle works out, here’s an opportunity and its still an interesting manga to read.

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

It depends, there are some cities I’d like to go to, like Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow, and some other one’s I can’t think of on the spot. But I’d also like to go to places of more natural beauty, especially cold, snowy, icy places. So visiting somewhere like Alaska, or going all out and checking out Antarctica would be awesome. I find it hard to narrow down all the places I would like to go to one location.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody! Hopefully everyone gets to party hard enough to be both impressed and regretful of tonights festivities during National Hang-Over Day =P  Think up a fun resolution if you’re into that, either way, lets all go crazy on the night its expected of us. I suppose my resolution will be to actually keep up with this blog. At least tumblr seems to make it easy, and while not all posts will be reviews of anime or manga, I do have a few more of those coming up (School Days manga and Ginen Shounen to name a couple). See ya next year! =D

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Otome Youkai Zakuro

Pretty good comedy/romance anime with some fantasy action as well. The setting is japan in the process of undergoing significant westernization. This leads to conflict between spirits and humans to occur more frequently. As a result the army, which usually has anti-spirit views, sends a group of soldiers to join the spirit-ran Spirit Affairs. The three soldiers develop relationships with the half-spirit girls and along the way there are a few fights with spirits gone berserk and such. There is also a little bit of mystery, but the main portion is focused on Zakuro and her past which is hinted at a bit, but not really revealed until the last couple episodes. Somewhat obvious twists, the end seemed a little rushed and the very end seemed a bit forced to end on a happy note though it wasn’t necessary and didn’t seem likely…

So yeah, overall pretty nice. Some entertaining comedic moments, and a pleasant, somewhat light anime to pick up and enjoy for a short 13 episodes.