KOTOMINEEEEEEE KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIREI

THIS EPISODE.

^This will never happen again. Oh Kariya. You sad, sad bastard.

Just to clarify one thing that the anime doesn't really make explicit: due to the worms literally eating him from the inside out, Kariya lost his marbles a loooong time ago. Apparently, Kariya's Big Scene in this episode was written in a hazy, confusing manner in the light novel, as if he could barely even recognize Aoi. So presumably, pre-worm infestation Kariya wouldn't have completely lost his shit in this scene.

Also, I really enjoyed the dialogue between Kotomine and Zouken. If there's one character in the fate franchise who is "eviller" than Kotomine, it is definitely Zouken. Absolutely nothing about that man is likable.

Anything else I could say about this episode has already been said better and with more exuberance by this guy:

paris, venice, rome, vienna, prague

The above picture has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of my post. :P

My mother and I are leaving for a 10-day trip around Europe starting June 2. I've been booking trains and hotels/hostels over the past couple days. I'm getting pretty excited. :)

I don't want to bore you with the details of my excessive planning, so here are a few of the highlights:

• We're visiting Versailles on our 2nd day in Paris. I've been wanting to visit Versailles ever since I watched Rose of Versailles in high school. (Yeah, I'm lame, shut up. =_=)
• VENICE. My mom's not that into flooding cities, but I really pushed for it. I've wanted to visit Venice ever since I visited the Venetian hotel as a kid. Also, ARIA. ^^;
• We're seeing the Colosseum, bitches.

This will be our first time in Europe. We're basically backpacking & all of our traveling between countries will be via train, including overnight trains. I'm not really worried, since China made me into a pretty hardy traveler. I do wonder how my mother will fare though. ^^;;

Also, I just stumbled upon & downloaded a year-old chapter of the Finder series that I didn't know about before today. I swear, whenever I convince myself that I've read everything that's been released of the Finder series, I always end up discovering something that I somehow overlooked. @_@

EDIT: Oh! And thank you all for the birthday wishes. Much appreciated. ^^

Where Justice is Found

It's fun to see how polarized people's opinions of Kiritsugu are, though it's also a little bewildering. So many people rag on Kerry for his ideals, yet I've only ever seen a handful of people complain about FSN Archer, even though the two of them are pretty much the same damn person. Seriously people, what is the deal?

Anyway, the episode was a little slow, but I can't say I disliked it. Kinda reminded me of an episode of Phantom of the Inferno. And there was some major cryingface at the end there. ^^;;

Also, Sakamichi no Apollon should be officially renamed to "Bros Over Hoes: The Anime"

Distant Memories

Being Kiritsugu sure is suffering, lol. His past is just about as grimdark as I was expecting it to be. Best moment for me was when Natalia said, "That's a shitty reason for killing your own father." Story of Kiritsugu's life.

Don't have much to say this time around, except that you can really see the Kara no Kyoukai in this episode. There was even a special cameo at the end. :3

Other stuff:

- This week's episode of Legend of Korra was incredibly meh. I was okay with all the teenage drama at first, but it just spiraled out of control in the second half. Yeesh. Hoping for a return to plot next week.

- On the other hand, this week's ep of Sakamichi no Apollon was reallllllllly good. I quite liked the flashback and the jam session at the end was really well done. I was also really impressed by the overall lack of Engrish. Bravo.

I'm hoping I'm not the only one who finds the bromance in Apollon so much more interesting and heartwarming than all the love quadrangle stuff? I swear, I'm not even BLing out or anything! It's just nice that, for once, a strong friendship isn't portrayed as being totally secondary to a romantic relationship. :)

Chihayafuru is wonderful.

^Admittedly, a lot of my feelings on the show have to do with these two right here, Taichi in particular. HE JUST TRIES SO HARD. ;____;

Seriously, each time he loses, I feel like someone just chiseled out a piece of my heart. His most recent loss literally made me want to stomp around my room, kicking things and screaming.

This anime is actually one of the few times a story has managed to genuinely leave me guessing in regards to which love interest will "win" in the end. You can make a fairly strong case for either guy:

- Arata is obviously the guy who Chihaya gives more special attention to. She practically worships him, and the series seems to be setting things up so that Arata and Chihaya will be the future karuta Master & Queen.
- But then again, you can easily make the argument that Chihaya only has very strong feelings of admiration towards Arata and admiration =/= love.

- As for Taichi, even though he's constantly in Arata's shadow, the narrative allows him so much screen time and forces the audience to sympathize with him so much that it is impossible to simply write him off.
- But then again, I imagine the series might take the Honey & Clover route and have Taichi eventually realize that he needs to move on. He keeps getting the shaft anyway, SO WHY NOT JUST CONTINUE THE TREND. ;___;

Obviously, I'm rooting for Team Taichi... even though I have the niggling feeling that this route only leads to Bad Ends. o_o

All that said, I must admit, karuta club seems like the type of thing I would've joined in high school. It wouldn't have even been all that weird either, considering how many random Asian kids sat in the hallways playing Mahjong at my school. :P