blodeuedd

I still haven't finished Ink, so Vellum will have to wait another week.

In the meantime, ( The Tudors, season 1 )

In other news...

Dream Live 6th in Tokyo the weekend my brother is here!

EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee! :D

Another weekend nearly over... Can't complain, really, since I had lots of fun, in spite of my throat which is not taking to hint to get better already. It's been two annoying weeks of "I'm not really sick but my throat tickles/is kind of sore/I'm coughing stuff up but only sporadically" and it's getting old fast.

( A day spent with Jill, and not a single mention or instance of sausages, spurting or otherwise! D: )

It was so much fun that we need to do it again, and anyone else who would like to join us is invited! Bring your knitting, your cross stitching, your origami, your sketchbook, your [insert current project here], and let's enjoy sparkly tennis together! :D I'm all out of mead, though.

( Ume, ume, ume!!! )

( KenKen and Kane-chan in Kiddyland, take 2! Or, Kane in Sunshine Cinemaland! )

( Yokohama Singing Adventures )

I hope everyone else had a nice weekend as well! Good night!

Sogo department store is in full January sale frenzy, enticing customers with large red and white signs proclaiming "CLIMAX OFF".



Walking through Kichijouji station one morning, the living incarnation of high-school-age Oshitari Yuushi, looking more like him than any myu actor has ever looked, or could ever hope to.



On Aoyama-doori, a little boy wearing a puffy winter jacket, the zipper of which split up the Engrish, so that one could read:

KING
UKE

Tabitha LOOOOOOOVES the heater. I was sitting on my futon with a blanket over my legs while I watched tenimyu, the space heater turned toward my lap (to keep my hands warm while I knitted, of course!) and within two minutes, Tabitha was firmly ensconced on my thighs. Kitty heaven! She didn't move at all during the whole myu, even when I was fumbling to top up my tea, or even when I couldn't stop giggling at the video of Tezuka looking soulful on a tennis court in Germany Kyuushu.

My (very, very loose) translation of the Match of Love:

Oishi: Eiji, don't mind! You're awesome no matter what you do!
Eiji: Oishi, I love you so much! <3
Shishido: What the hell, I thought they couldn't possibly get any gayer than they already were!
Ohtori: You're right, Shishido-san, that is pretty gay!
*Synchro happens*
Shishido: What faggotry is this?!?
*Seigaku's Golden Pair loses*
Eiji: What happened? All I could see was Oishi!
Oishi: I remember it being match point, and then... It was like the earth moved! It was incredible! Eiji, I love you!
Eiji: I love you, too!
Shishido: Goddammit! Save the gay-ass sparkling for off the court!

Taken from zen_strike because it made me giggle:

Directions: Pick 10 characters from a certain fandom, arrange or write their names down in random order, then answer the questions. No peeking at the questions first, okay?

1 - Kikumaru Eiji
2 - Sanada Genichirou
3 - Shishido Ryou
4 - Dan Taichi
5 - Amane Hikaru, a.k.a. Davide
6 - Tachibana Kippei
7 - Atobe Keigo
8 - Horio Satoshi
9 - Oishi Shuuichirou
10 - Inui Sadaharu

( Oh, those wacky tennis boys... )

I don't know why the hell I included Tachibana in that list, I barely know him!

M-P and I decided that since we were going to see tenimyu, we'd make it a day of fandom and head out to Ikebukuro for anime goods and doujinshi. We made it just passed the Sanrio store when the sky suddenly opened up and it started bucketing down. I've rarely seen rain that strong, and the only time I've seen it that strong and accompanied by so much thunder and lightning was the time my family and I were camping in Minnesota: when we woke up in the morning, the campground ressembled a war zone, there were so many fallen branches all over. Not that that happened in Ikebukuro, mind you. After hiding out under a storefront awning for a while, we decided, "What the hell," and stepped outside, both of us huddled under my little umbrella. It was terribly romantic, of course, but not as romantic as Tezuka and Fuji sharing an umbrella to protect their hair from a few tiny snowflakes. (I'm sorry, but I can't help giggling about that scene whenever I think about it, because I don't see how there could be any other interpretation for it! XD). Still, romance or no, we were both mostly soaked within seconds.

The whole time we were at Animate (long enough to check out every floor), we could hear the thunder rolling outside, and when we left, it was still pouring. It only abated by the time we got to K-Books, and had started up again just as hard when we left the train to walk to tenimyu.

Before yesterday, M-P knew basically nothing about Prince of Tennis*, so I gave her a crash course while we were waiting in the lobby. ("Kenshin with tennis racquets! This is the main character: he's a brat who never loses. This is the captain: everyone worships buchou. This is Oishi, and he looks good in wet clothes. XD" etc. etc.) Because I'd bought her ticket at the last minute, it was an unassigned seat, and since we were among the first at the theatre, no doubt because of the rain, I traded it in for seat C11. So I gave M-P my original ticket (M46) and settled in for some Golden! Pair! Bench! Action! (Because I'm not at all obsessed with my favourite pair ever and did not buy a huge stack of doujinshi featuring them today, I swear! There's a Silver Pair book in there somewhere...) :DDDD

( (thoughts about the show here) )

* This evening, she made a deal with me. She'll watch PoT if I watch Loveless. I said, "Sure! :D" because I've already downloaded it, so it's not like I wasn't going to watch it anyway... And while I don't expect her to be a convert to the Cult of Pot, I really hope she won't hate it!

I'm off to see the tennis boys, the wonderfully sparkly tennis boys! *packs binoculars and kira kira mitt*

:DDDDD

More hilarity on The L Word:

(scene: Shane and Alice sit on the counter, eating pot-enriched -- and I mean actual pot, not Prince of Tennis, -- seriously, how awesome would that be?! -- but I'll get to that -- brownies)

Shane: OMG, what if the brownies are gay?! D:
Alice: They're totally fucking each other! :D
(Shane makes the brownies have sex)

Alice and Shane, I love you being high and goofy together. You rock. In fact, what I love the most about this show, besides the hot sex scenes (BETTE AND TINA YOU NEARLY MELTED MY BRAIN!!!), are the girls just hanging around together or embarking on silly escapades, like the Terrible Trio (Bette, Shane and Alice) trespassing and stealing the sign for Bette's lady love. "Go, save yourselves!"

That's also the best part of Prince of Tennis for me: when the boys just hang out and unwittingly end up on "dates" (that episode made me die laughing, again!) or go bowling or eat yakiniku...

And if I've just lumped The L Word with Prince of Tennis, well... Only one of these shows is actually about gay people.

So they tell us.

*coughcough*

:D

I'm still waiting to hear what my brother thought of the Golden Pair's Match of Love (against Jyousei, during which they can't seem to keep their hands off each other), but I think he was just so awed by Atobe's prowess that he took a break from the series after watching Atobe and Tezuka have sublimated sex for three and a half episodes.

And about the "It's a Date!" episode: so An's solution, when she sees that Momo is depressed, is to set him up on a date tennis match with... Kamio. O_O

I mean, it's the obvious thing to do, isn't it? XD

And now, further news on the Converting My Brother To PoT Front.

Before we left for Nara on Monday morning, we went to Denden Town, Osaka's answer to Akihabara. Just like the rest of Osaka as compared to Tokyo, it's grottier and seedier than Akiba, but I'll write about that in more detail on travelpod. Anyway, after getting lost, backtracking, and finally finding our way to the electronics district, we stumbled upon Animate, and wasn't I a very pleased PoT-enabling sister when B1 said we should go look to see if they had the stuff I wanted (i.e. Golden Pair anything). When he followed me through Animate in Tokyo, I'm fairly sure he was just humouring me, but this time I think he really was interested in seeing how many useless products you can stick a chibi Inui on. As we were examining the merchandise, he let out a snort and pointed out something (a notebook? I forget).

B1: Why is Tezuka grabbing at his crotch?! D:
Me: *choking on my laughter* Um... maybe's he's just shielding it? (He was pictured next to Echizen, though... *snerk*)
B1: No, he's clearly grabbing it! This is supposed to be a kid's show!
Me: Uh, yeah... XD

Since B1's been practicing karate for nigh fourteen years, he's picked up some Japanese, mainly names for positions and katas, as well as numbers. But because he never watched all that much anime with me, back when I did nothing else (it was B2 whom I led down the merry road of Fushigi Yuugi and Rurouni Kenshin obsessions), he isn't familiar with some common expressions, such as "sugoi" -- and in PoT, it seems that every second line is someone exclaiming "Sugoi!" Since B1 thinks Horio is so funny, he's latched onto "Sugoi! Tuisto saabu!" as his new favourite phrase.

Despite the heavy rain, Nara was teeming with middle school students on class trips; as you can imagine, there was a whole lot of "Sugoi!"ing and "Sugeee!"ing going on, especially around the giant Buddha, and B1 felt it necessary to turn to me with a grin each time he heard that word, adding "Tuisto saabu!"

This evening we watched 10 episodes*, and my brother got to experience Mizuki in all his glory. While I was busy pointing frantically at the screen and incoherently screeching, "Who the hell would wear that?!?!" at Mizuki's Purple Shirt of Doom in episode 40, B1 merely blinked at Mizuki saying to Yuuta, "I'll keep you company all night long," and commented, "So, you want to know who I think is gay?"

XD

Of course, the Golden Pair hasn't gotten very touchy-feely yet, but he did raise an eyebrow at their "let's high-five each other and keep our palms together for 5 seconds!" pose.

B1: What's that good move?
Me: It's their special hand-holding move! :D

Tomorrow night, we face off against Yamabuki. At this rate, dare I hope we'll be able to make it through the Hyoutei arc before he leaves? He's already planning on burning the series to take with him so he can watch it at home, but it's so much more educational with me providing colour commentary, isn't it? Not that I'm really letting loose, though I have been pointing out characters and telling him to "remember this guy!" because when I first watched the series, I missed quite a few things. For example, I didn't at all remember seeing Shishido lose to Tachibana the first time 'round. In fact, I don't think I remembered anything about the Hyoutei boys, except for their pink-soled shoes, until Seigaku actually started playing against them.

* Ah, this brings me back to the good old days of M-P, A-L and I spending entire weekends watching anime together... I miss you girls!

My brother arrived last night, and we've already started on Prince of Tennis! :D *glee*

So far, his funniest comment was (about Ryuuzaki-sensei), "She obviously takes male growth hormones." I'm sure he'll have plenty more profound thoughts, but he was kind of tired from the flight, so we only watched two episodes.

Also, I have the Dream Live 5th poster up on my door, and he said that Fuji and Kisarazu Ryou are the most feminine-looking guys he's ever seen.